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FCC Considering 10-Digit Dialing [UPDATED] 545

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-I-can't-remember-my-number-anyway dept.
Ambiguo writes: "An article in today's LA Times is reporting today that tomorrow the FCC will begin considering switching to 10 digit phone numbers, starting as early as next month. There's a lot of opposition to it, especially since there was a large backlash when LA tried this a little while ago, but some say it's a stepping stone to the eventual 11 or 12 digit phone number of the future." Update: 12/06 4:33 PM by michael: The FCC is not going to switch us all to 10-digit numbers. Yet.
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FCC Considering 10 Digit Dialing More

FCC Considering 10 Digit Dialing

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  • All numbers should be your SSN (or some other number) followed by a letter from a to z. When you move, change jobs, etc., you call the phone company/post office and have them point your SSN+x number to the correct place.

    And you thought identity theft was a nightmare now...just wait until something like this is implemented.

    ---
    "Fdisk format reinstall, doo dah doo dah,
  • The majority of places I'm aware of which had variable length numbers are moving towards fixed length numbers. The value of knowing if a number has the correct number of digits is greater than the value of variable lenght codes.
  • Everybody needs to quit their damn whining.

    If I tell you my damn phone number is 999-555-1212, then write all those damn digits down on a damn piece of paper and when you need to talk to me, type all the damn digits into the damn phone. How is that any harder than dialing 7 damn digits?

    And for people who are whining about the damn machines that need to be changed to handle 10 digits: it will be easier because currently, some damn places have 10 damn digit dialing and others have 7 damn digit dialing. If they all had 10 damn digit dialing, your machines would be easier to program.

    Note to people outside the USA: Yes, we damn Americans really are so damn stupid that we can't handle dialing a few extra damn numbers. But at least we don't have damn warm bawls.
  • I always considered the american system of fixed length for the area code (3 digits) and phone number (7 digits) extremely stupid.

    In other countries, e.g. in most european ones, you have variable length area codes and phone numbers, allowing for a kind of "huffman coding": A big city gets 8 or 9 digit telephone numbers and uses a 2 digit area code, to keep the overall number as short as possible. Smaller towns use 4 or 5 digit telephone numbers and 3 or 4 digit area codes, and medium sized cities can use 3 digit area codes with 5 to 8 digit numbers.

    A look at the german numbering plan, for example, shows other advances:
    You use the '0' as the long distance access code, and the '00' as international access code. E.g. 0-40-54325432 to call from berlin to hamburg, or 00-1-415-7654321 to call to san francisco. This way you waste only one digit and not 2 for access codes.
    You can group area codes locally. E.g. Berlin has the '30' area code, smaller cities and towns nearby have '331' (Potsdam) or '3322' (Falkensee) or '33439' (Blumberg). Cities in the south of germany have areacodes starting with '7', '8' or '9' (Bavaria and Baden Wuertemberg) or '6' (greater Frankfurt area), others start with '2' (Ruhrarea) or '4' (Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein). This way you have at least a rough idea where in the country you're calling to.

    You should adopt that system here, and there will be no more whining about 2, 3 or even 4 completely different area codes for the same city.

    Think about it,
    Christian.
  • There are enough valid numbers to allocate about 15 numbers to every person currently alive in the NANP. That's without any expansion in the number of valid numbers.

    The problems with the NANP are due to overallocation in large cities. Any CLEC who wishes to compete in a rate centre needs an entire prefix. They get 500 customers, and that means 9500 numbers wasted. In the typical large american city, with many rate centres, and many CLECs, this means that the area code become exhaused.

    Many locations have started conservation measures, either consolidation of rate centres, or allocation of sub prefix blocks to CLECs.

  • New York is the only area to do this. The FCC issued a ruling against it shortly afterwards.
  • The military phone system uses them to assign priorities to calls. The are used for 'PRIORITY', 'IMMEDIATE', 'FLASH' and 'FLASH OVERRIDE'. If none of them is pressed, then it's a 'ROUTINE' call. In the event of the system becoming saturated, calls are dropped in order of priority, so all ROUTINE's first, then up the chain until the system is no longer saturated. There is lots on the web which you can find if you use the priorities, here is one [disa.mil]
  • Or for geographically small area codes, for example New York has 13 area codes.
  • So how do I know if you're in LA or New York? Just by looking at the number I could be charged long distance or short distance!
  • You'd have a whole lot more numbers, even with the current numbering plan if the USA had it's own numbering plan. Rather than something covering Canada, USA and other odd bits and pieces.
    The current +1 "country" code has all sorts of complications, especially where different rates are charged to different countries within it.
  • _ONE_ friggin number, that stays the same no matter where I move, and 2 spare digits on the end, so a cell, fax, pager, computer, all share a common number.


    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00 = phone
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-01 = cell
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02 = fax
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-03 = pager
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-04 = computer

    Depending on how this is implimented it's either DISA (dial the existing 11 digits, get some sort of tone/prompt and dial the next X) or German style DDI (just dial the number given, but needs the whole planet to be able to cope with variable length numbers.)
    No doubt there are NANP terms for these, probably used nowhere else, too.
  • Before we get really ambitious with something like a common number for all your devices, let's get local number portability. If local numbers were portable there would be *no shortage* of telephone numbers.

    With the conseqence of a telephone network which needs huge routing tables..

    10 digit numbers with no 1 or 0 to start the area code or the exchange is 8^2(10^8) = 6.4 billion phone numbers. With a population of ~275 million that's more than 20 phone numbers for every man, woman, child, and little baby in the country.

    Actually it's several countries, also unless the entire routing table was replicated world wide then there would be complications.
    Currently the originator can at least have a guess at where a number is (based on the first 3 digits) thus could use a different link depending on if the call is going to Hawaii or New York...

    The whole problem is that there are some exchanges with tons of unused numbers and others that are full. Each area code has 8 million numbers. If we got local number portability, all 8 million would be used.

    Problem is that 7 digit number space is too small for urban areas, but often too large for sparsly populated areas. Both the USA and Canada have a wide variety of population densities.
    Any kind of solution which is simple for people would require some radical actions.
  • This made sense some years ago when we had very high prices for long distance phone calls, you could have three types of numbers which were somewhat lower than the normal price. The called party paid the remainder. You had one type which had a tariff somewhat similar to long distance (slightly lower), one with a tariff for medium distance calls and one with a tariff for local calls (yes, we actually have to pay for local phone calls). And there are two types which costs the calling party a fixed amount for the whole call.
    Nowadays the prices of phone calls dropped dramatically, the price of a long distance call beeing near (or even _below_) a local call, so these numbers lost there original use.

    You can even get situations such that such a "split cost" number is actually more expensive to call than any ordinary geographic number. e.g. such numbers being excluded from a discount scheme.
  • But what happens if I don't want a fax or a pager, but I want 3 voice lines? Or several fax machines, but nothing else? This would be a nice system, except it would need to be tailored for each situation, and then you're back where you started.

    If people will not need to distinguish between them then they can all be on separate lines with the same number.
  • One problem is that with 7-digit dialing you know that if a call goes through then it's a local call. With 10-digit dialing it's harder to tell whether you're being charged by the minute or not. Easy to get burned if, for example, you assume that the number your ISP gave you is local just because it's in your area code, only to get a nasty surprise with your long distance bill at the end of the month.

    The latter appears to be a uniquely NANP happening. In most parts of the world the local number is simply a short convenience. The number of digits dialed dosn't affect the charging.
    i.e. if the US followed the rest of the planet then you could dial a local number as 1-ABC-DEF-GHIJ, ABC=DEF-GHIJ or DEF-GHIJ and it would both work and have no difference in charging.
  • Why are we in such a crisis? I know people have more phone numbers for computers, pagers, faxes, cell phones, etc, but is it really THAT extreme?

    The minor reason is that the USA dosn't have all of the +1 number space the major reason is that a 7 digit "local number" is too small for many urban areas, but also too large for sparsly populated areas. But 3-3-4 (or 3-7) format is hardcoded in too many places to easily change.
  • > Better yet: One number, period.
    Yes, you could think of the spare 2 digits as a "port"

    > The nature of the call is detected and handled accordingly.

    Yes, I don't see why we couldn't have a packet sent first identifying the device type & connection.

    i.e. I fax someone. The fax sends a digital identification, saying it would like a fax connection. Or I connect via TCP/IP to the same number, and the first packet signifies a IP connection. I phone, the first packet signals an voice connection. etc.

    I guess it's a just a matter of time before everything converges into one data stream.
  • Enforced 7 digit dialing is a real pain in the ass. I have to figure out which identical suburban town I'm standing in before dialing someone? "Let's see, now, I crossed the river, so I must be in 952 -- no wait, I'm WEST of Cedar Avenue, but still east of Burnsville... (Excuse me, sir, but are we still south of the airport?), so this is 651?

    There's your Bull. I can't wait for the cutover to catch up to all the phone switches so it's all 10 digit enabled.

    John

  • There is also the concept of permissive dialing. Even though it's NOT REQUIRED to dial the area code, I've long looked forward to being able to put in the whole telephone number (e.g. 1-212-345-6789) in my laptop's list of ISP's telephone numbers, and let the telco sort things out.

    This is something in which is probably the norm outside of North America. Since long before laptops were even invented. Even hardware which belongs in a museum can manage this, so far as modern computer controlled kit is concerned its probably a standard feature.
    The logic being "if I dial these digits it will always work. If I happen to know I'm in the same area I can dial this shorter set of digits"
    Indeed it looks almost as though the USA made a design decision to make humans help machines.
  • BT/Oftel in the UK has changed the length of the telephone number 3 times in my recent memory, added and split area codes. London is onto its 3rd set of area codes in recent history. Actually make that 4 because where I grew up we had short std code dialing and that went away as some point as well.

    The short "local codes" always were an alternative option. "Permisive dialing" (as the American's call it) was part of the system from the start. Even though allowing it could cause certain exchanges to "trombone", remember that all the routing was originally hardwired through relays. (Part of the point of the short codes is that they worked as explicit routing instructions.)

  • I guess it's a just a matter of time before everything converges into one data stream.

    Aahh... the promised land!

  • Never happen. You have already entered the Corporate States of Microsoftia. You'll get a GUID and you'll be happy with it.

    John
    (that's {985209B0-CBCC-11d4-991D-00A0C029468C} to you...)

  • Unless you have 10-digit dialing, you can't have an exchange and an area code be the same,
    Sure you can. What changed a few years ago, to free up both ACs with middle digit >1 and exchanges with middle digit ifyou start with a 1, the next thing must be the area code even if it's the same.

    When 1+ dialling came into effect, they had a jingle on the TV and radio, at least around these parts:

    Dial 1, plus the area code, if it's different from your own, plus the number!
    So, the only restriction is on local exchanges and area codes. Here in Kansas City, there can't be any 913-816-xxxx numbers or 816-913-xxxx numbers, but Southwestern Bell is absolutely free to use those exchanges in, say, Paola, KS and St. Joseph, MO, with no trouble at all. We also couldn't use 913-913-xxxx or 816-816-xxxx here locally, because it is permittedfor us to dial our own area code for a local call. But there's still no reason why those can't be used away from the state line.

    For those truly massive metros that require multiple area codes, it would be necessary that none of the area code numbers be used as exchanges in any of them. But there are 792 (8 * 99, because an exchange can't end in 11) theoretically possible exchanges for each area code, so even if scores of them are declared ineligible, we're talking about well over seven million potential numbers per area code. Allowing for some underuse in various exchanges, let's make it an even five million.

    We've got 640 (8 * 80, excluding xyy patterns) possible geographic area codes, even allowing for massive expansion of non-geographic codes. Since each state, province, and district requires one area code, even if there are much less than five million phones, we ought to knock that number down to 600.

    By my math, that gives us 3 billion geographically-allocated numbers in North America right now, and we're nowhere near needing that many.
    --------------------
    SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.

  • The driver behind this has been that when the phone numbers were first assigned most people didn't have a phone line but plans were put into place for a phone line in every home. So whilst we were in a situation where most homes had one line we were OK for numbers however now the norm is approaching

    Actually the problem is exactly the same as with the NANP. Plenty of numbers but in the wrong place. Indeed the UK plan is ever worst in some ways, since the original design was worked out around each STD code covering a specific amount of geographical area.
    The NANP was more flexiable in this respect, but considerably more complex in terms of charging.
  • Not splitting up the STD codes by provider. There is no reason at all that C&W need to have 0500 for free calls, while BT had 0800. This would have halfed the requirements for special area codes.

    Worst are the premium rate codes, which really IMHO should have gone into a special numbering space, undialable from outside the UK. i.e. numbers starting with 1.
  • It was March 2000 that the 10 digit dialing was enforced. It was optional in January, and announce (stupid Ma Bell message in my VMB) in Nov. or Dec.

    This said, for a while, I was able to dial 7-digit after March, but only rarely. And there was no rhyme or reason to it, sometimes a 7 would work, other times not -- even the same number.

    By April every call I made required 10 digit.
  • The problem stems way back to the dawn of the phone company. Since there is no "enter" key on a telephone, the length of a phone number must be either fixed or predictable.
    The solution chosen was quite a simple one, and I'm amazed that more people have never noticed it. It is thus: The second digit of all area codes is either a zero or a one. Thus, if the second digit dialed in is a zero or a one, the phone switch will wait for 10 digits as opposed to just seven.

    This was the original plan which was simple for the hardware 50 years ago to understand. IIRC the NANP never actually fully followed this in the first place.

    It is important to note that this does not mean that there is a shortage of phone numbers. Well, there is a shortage, but it is a ficticious one, created by the way in which phone numbers are allocated. Phone numbers are allocated in blocks of 1000 consecutive numbers which all go to the same local switch.

    10,000 line blocks of numbers (or more specifically 10,000 line "local switches") go right back to the original idea for automated telephone systems. It's utterly obsolete WRT any equiptment which has been available for decades.
  • It would be easier if area codes were more logically assigned.

    When the NANP was originally created there was a lot of logic to it. Just that since then bits and pieces have been added on all over the place.

    Take your example of a city with 10 random area codes (fictitious I believe since I don't know of any city with that many. Maybe LA...). Having to remember 1 of 10 area codes is essentially the same as remembering a single extra digit, not 3 extra digits.

    The point is how would you then change the US over to 8 digit local dialing. One possible way would be to add a digit onto the end of the 7 digit number and have a completly new set of area codes, problem would be finding a way to do these in a way which does not conflict with the existing numbering. This is something which would have been easier when the second digit of the area code was 0 or 1...
  • Yes, there is that rule. That never struck me as particularly the reason that telephone numbers were allocated as seven digits.

    It's historical, very historical. The original idea being a 3 letter abreviation and a 4 digit number.
  • All current 3 digit area codes could be converted to 4 digit by appending a 1.. then 2-9 would be used for additional area codes.

    Except that it would probably make more sense to have bigger "local numbers" than more area codes. With lots of area codes you run into the problem with the area either being some subset of a meaningful area or several area codes covering the same area. i.e. a 3-8 split makes more sense than a 4-7 split.
  • London was always meant to be unified; 0171, 0181 were temporary measures to scrape some space in the old overcrowded numeric space.

    Actually the London split was a huge mistake...
  • The system doesn't quite work like it used to, but the first 3 numbers is the exchange, which used to relate directly to a building somehwere nearby where all the physical phone lines for all the numbers with that exchange connected.

    Actually to a very large pile of relays. This was the best part of a century ago. The buildings may still exist but now contain much smaller pieces of hardware, the basic unit of which is a concentrator which connects around 100 lines to a either a 1.5M (NA) or 2M(rest of the world) digital link. These will scale pretty much indefinitly.
  • It was a starting place. I assume that some of those technologies will get more and more multiplexed and multifunctional so that less numbers will be necessary. I especially envision faxes becoming rarer and hopefully modems. Besides, by adding a digit you can make 2 numbers per person into 20 numbers per person. Which should be more than enough.
  • Big pipes aren't enough. Reliable and redundant pipes and routers are critical. They can't have to interrupt service to repair or upgrade equipment. A telephone exchange can keep running as a whole for years, with parts being replaced as needed and minimal disruption occurring. The Internet infrastructure needs to achive THAT level of high availability.

    Hope you are right about it getting better.

    Also, I still think there is a place for circuit switched technology in phone networks...

  • Make wireless phones use IPs? Um, if IP addresses were so easy to remember, we would be using them in place of name. For example, we'd all go to http://64.28.67.48/ instead of http://slashdot.org/ to read /.

    And what happens when (if) we move to IPv6? Do you really want to have to dial numbers that long?

    --
  • A 10-digit number should be acceptable provided that each new section is a shared area code that can be remembered separately.

    If it is simply a long string of evidently random digits, won't the bells run up against the theoretical "average" digit memorization length of 10? If you present a string of digits to a random test subject and ask them to recite those digits, most will falter after the tenth.

    For people who change their home addresses and thus their phone numbers frequently, an 11-12 digit number might result is lots of recollection failures. One thing the telco's have not experienced yet is user support for people who have forgotten their home phone numbers!

    -konstant
    Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
  • First a quick note - i live in 10-digit dialing land, and it's not so bad.

    However, i don't see why it was necessary - as far as i can tell, it would have been better in every way just to expand area codes to four digits.
    • It would solve the 212 / 646 problem - in Manhattan, there's an overlay of 212 and 646. Businesses -hate- getting stuck with a 646 number, because 212 is supposedly more prestigous. But all they would have had to do is take ever number of the form 212-XXX-YYYY and change it to 2120-XXX-YYYY, and give 2121 through 2129 numbers to all new subscribers.

    • People could keep seven digit dialing.

    • I haven't done the math, but i'm pretty sure that four-digit ACs allow for more phone numbers than the current system, even if we had stuck with the "area codes have a 0 or 1 in the middle, and the first three digits of phone numbers will never look like an area code" system.

    • It would be easier to memorize area codes, and be able to look at a phone number and know where it is. If i see a 617 number, i know it's a Massachutsetts. With 4 digit ACs, i would see a 617x number and know it's Mass. But when i see some overlaid area code that doesn't at all resemble 617, i'm not going to have any idea where it's from.
    Can anyone think of any reason the telcos didn't take this approach?

    (BTW, cheap plug, since i'm pretty confident this will get moderated up: Check out the project linked to by my sig. It's pretty phat.)

    --

  • I live in the D.C. area, in Northern Virginia, a ten minute drive into the city. We only started even having to use area codes for local numbers about two months ago. Ten-digit dialing hasn't been standard here for three years, not by a long shot. Even when we started having to use area codes for local calls, two months ago, people started complaining. Now, I wasn't one of those people, and I understand the need for modernized phone number systems. However, I can understand how people, especially older people and the less educated, can see such changes as an added burden.

    That being said, it's a necessary step for future expandability. For now, at least. But, I bet that eventually, within the next 20 years at the accelarating pace of technology, telephone numbers and most telephone lines themselves will be passe. Cable and fiber and wireless are the future--telephone lines are just such puny creatures with such small bandwidth--and I honestly think that most calls will be routed through cyberspace in the future. Why have to remember a 10 digit phone number, when you can pick up a receiver and say: "John Laws, hampden-Sydney, Virginia," the first time, and then just pick up the receiver and say "John Laws" any time after the first? It's coming within the next two decades, three at the most.

  • Hexidecimal (Score:5)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:57AM (#577474)
    So when will they be coming out with hexidecimal touchtone phones?

    "Family Steakhouse: phone DEADBEEF for reservations."
  • I live in Europe, and at first, I found the confounding multiple numbers crunched together on business cards to be confusing as hell. I was used to the old (310) 555-3737 setup.

    What I saw was 0224-21279 for a local call... Or, a particularly nice one, 031-0568091

    These are from Telecom Italia, by the way. The numbers are infinitely different depending on the service you use as well. (Mobile, stationary, digitally switched, etc..)

    It took about two months to learn the system, during which, I carried around a scrap of paper in my wallet with some assists on it. Didn't take long at all to learn.

    However, you can take a look at first, WHY the FCC is thinking of this (They're running out of phone numbers) and correlate it to IP addresses.

    While the current IP string is fine for most networks, setting up a network with dedicated IP addresses is getting more and more difficult. This is primarily due to what I call first octet squatters. Given the number of independent networks around the world, it's quite feasible to give each locale a Third Octet string (instead of the usual second) This would allow for approximately 64000 network connections in a local area.

    Folks, No local network I've EVER heard of had 64K comps hooked up to it. That's plenty of address space. For the most part, privatized networks have realized this, and have gone to splitting the same octet between themselves and an associate.

    Unfortunately, there are quite a few number hogs out there, and regardless of the amount of computers that could feasibly be connected (with only three primary Octets allocated you get around 49 MILLION, 500 THOUSAND independent IP allocations)with the third octet string instead of the second.

    So called "Plank owners" of the internet need to wake up and smell the coffee. Secularizing the second, or first octet string is effectively the same as driving a bus sideways across a 6 lane freeway at 5 mph. Major startup ISP companies that got their go in the late 80's and are now pretty much defunct (Compuserve) are guilty of this as well.

    Many people don't see this as a problem. They tend to think like I did, (until I saw it for myself)which was "with 4.294967296 BILLION IP addresses, we'll never run out of space."

    The phone companies thought the same way.

    krystal_blade

  • Re:What a bunch of FUD (Score:3)

    by krlynch ( 158571 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:57AM (#577477) Homepage

    I think you missed the point that people are complaining about (not that I blame you...I KNEW what the problem was (from my dad, who works in the industry), and I had to read the article three times to find it).

    This would be 10 digit dialing to everyone, everywhere in the USA, all the time. You would NEVER have to dial 1 for a toll call; all calls 10 digits, all the time (0, 911, 311, 411, 611 excepted of course). So, some "consumer advocates" are concerned that people would be too stupid to figure out whether they are making a toll call when they don't have to dial a 1 (even though most people don't know what the leading 1 really means anyway).

    Not having to assign special meaning to the leading 1 means that another 100 area codes open up, and the system not having to figure out whether you will be dialing 10 or 7 digits means that you can add exchanges starting with 0 and 1, for another 2x10^6 numbers per area code. Plus, the system becomes much LESS confusing for the users, as it will always be the same procedure for making a call, and you will never have your phone number (area code) changed out from under you again.

  • It's actually 7 'chunks'. So following that rule, yes, "five-five-five-one-two-one-two" for many would reach the capacity of their short-term memory, but "five-five-five-twelve-twelve" would not. Obviously, this varies from person to person.

    I've been living in D.C. for a few years where we have 10-digit dialing. It's easy because it's based on geography (202 is D.C., 703 is Virginia, etc.), but I can see it being problematic when you have more than one area code in a given geographic region. I couldn't think in terms of "Virginia 555-1212", so it becomes more items to remember, and therefore more difficult.

    [I find it quite dry, but for anyone who's in to this sort of thing, you can find the article that established this '7 chunk' limit at here [well.com].]

    --
  • Yeah, but I thought the rule was 2 or 3 groups of 3 or 4 - so I think we're still fine using 10-digit numbers.

    The other thing, and this isn't a psychological theory but just something I've noticed, is that I really don't remember certain area codes as sequences of numbers anymore. For example, where I'm from in michigan, the area code is 616. No one from there tells me their area code, I just know it. And I don't put any effort into remembering it. It's getting to be like that with my new area code (520) as well. I imagine it's something akin to a Chinese speaker remembering a certain pictograph; the area code only takes up one "chunk" of memory. And if we were this familiar with, say, the area code AND the LATA, then all we'd really have to remember as a sequence would be somebody's last 4 numbers.

  • Local or long distance? (Score:3)

    by garver ( 30881 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:43AM (#577484)

    But outraged consumer advocates and state regulators say adopting 10-digit dialing is unnecessary and would create confusion about the distinction between a local and long-distance call.

    I can see a point here, but only kind of. Traditionally, when you dial a number with a "1" at the front, you are going to get charged. Without the "1" it is free. All of that is out the window with this change.

    BUT! I'm in Verizon's monopoly and routinely dial a 7 digit number (no "1"'s anywhere) and get charged. Granted, I was pissed the first time, but now I'm used to it. In fact, nowadays, I completely ignore whether it is long distance or not. Partly because the charges are peanuts and I now have an income, but mostly because I now usually use my mobile which doesn't differentiate between a free or toll call.

  • If that was the case no one would remember IP addresses, and it seems like most people have no problem in that department.

    Huh? If people could easily remm=ember IP addresses, we wouldn't need DNS.

    While many network geeks may be able to remember IPs, they are hardly representative fo the population as a whole.

    I know the IPs I know because they're all on the same network and start with the same 6 digits, so all i really have to "remember" is the last 6. If I had to truly memorize all 12 for every system I wouldn't have a chance...

    ---------------------------------------------
  • I was living in Denver when it switched to 10 digit dialing. To tell the truth, it was a pain in the arse. 8 mos later, I was still occasionally forgetting area codes from the numbers (force of habit, and the fact that a lot of written/printed numbers hadn't been updated to include the area code.) To make things worse, the really crappy local phone company, US West, allowed the phone ring up to 5 times before a message cut in to tell you of your mistake. I don't know why they couldn't do it faster, it was really irritating.
  • 10 digit dialing isn't required where I am (San Francisco Bay Area) but since I use my cell phone and my work phone, I dial all numbers as 11 digits (1-area code-then the number) because especialy on my cell, I don't know the default area code (is it the one that is on my phone (415?) or the area code that I am in (925?)? So, no matter if I am dialing a 415, 925, or 650, or whatever, I just dial 11 digits, and all of my phone numbers in the phone book feature are stored that way. Even at work, when I have to dial the numbers manualy, I just dial 11 digits by habit. (As I remember, if you dial a local number (555-1212) as 11 digits (1-415-555-1212) it's considered the same for the billing options.)

  • Umm... That's the 11 or 12 digit numbers. The 10 digit ones are just you having to type the area code on to all exisiting numbers, as well as new ones.

    The old number (with area code) (234) 555-1212 would be dialed 2345551212, even if you were in the 234 area code before.

  • It used to be that dialing the area code caused it to be a long distance number - you'd get billed for it. Nowadays, though, you generally have to dial 1 first anyway. Here in the Atlanta area it's been 10 digits for several years, and I haven't had a problem. Most people even abreviate it - 7 for 770 and 4 for 404.
    ----------
  • By adding the # and * characters into the currently allowed dialable digits you would get 4,159,780,352 (12^9 - 10^9) new numbers to work with.

    That should increase the supply for long time. Though this could be a problem for rotary/pulse phone users, the new numbers could be reserved numbers dialled by computers and fax machines for quite a few years.

    Also, the current shortage will level off in the next couple of years. I just saw a graph on c|net indicating that the number of analog modems will stop growing by 2002, this should reduce the number of new second analog phone lines/numbers used by residences, businesses, and ISPs.

    Also, Follow-Along phone numbers that are consistant between your home and cell phones could reduce the demand for new numbers as well.

  • I'll tell you what the problem is (Score:4)

    by andyf ( 15400 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:45AM (#577507) Homepage
    Read the article. :) The problem isn't that we'd all have to dial 10 digits, it's that the FCC wants to change the fundamental meaning of the 'sacred' 0 and 1 in a phone number

    FCC officials contend that 10-digit dialing would create tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0."

    1 signifies dialing a long-distance call, a toll call in all cases except 1-800, 1-500, 1-888, 1-8NN. 0 signifies an operator-assisted call. If the FCC would change this so that you could be dialing crosstown into a different area code and dial a 1 or 0 but not be making a long-distance or operator assisted call. Then, what happens if you hit an extra digit? Look:

    Local cross-area call: 162-523-3445

    But then add an extra digit, either through a slip of a key, or dialing one of those 777-MONEY numbers or something.

    Your local call changes to: 1-625-233-4450, a long distance call. That's what the problem is really about.

  • Explanation (Score:3)

    by flamingcow ( 153884 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:03AM (#577509) Homepage
    For those of you who don't know what 10-digit dialing is (the article isn't very clear), he's an explanation from a phone company employee:

    Users have to dial all 10 digits of a phone number whether its inside their area code or not; all phone numbers in the US are 10 digits. This frees up leading numbers such as 0 and 1 for creation of new exchanges and area codes. Please note that adding 0 and 1 to the set of 2-8 increases the size by 25%: thats not too much at the rate that number use is growing in the US. However, any move to 11 or 12 digit phone numbers should be dialing the entire number, so this is a step in the right direction.

  • Not really. (Score:3)

    by Pahroza ( 24427 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:03AM (#577510)
    If you know that the first 3 digits you dial will always be the same (or maybe vary between 2 different sets), then that becomes part of your long term memory, to which you can easily append the other 7.
  • Why do we even need 7 digits for local calls? I certainly have less than 100 friends and family that I call. 10 digits are just a waste!

    With digital switches, exchanges are basically area codea now, so that takes care of that problem.

    All we need is a 3-digit number, and maybe a 3-digit exchange for less-dialed people or long distance calls.

    I'm filled with solutions!
  • Verizon (Bell Atlantic/Nynex/New England Telephone) has announced that they will enforce 10-digit dialing for every call, including local intra-LATA calls, starting in March 2001. That means even if you are calling your next door neighbor, you will have to dial 1+Area Code+Number.

    From Verizon's website [bellatlantic.com]:
    Important Information to Help You

    The way you dial a local call will change beginning September 15, 2000. To prepare for the new area codes, beginning September 15, 2000, all customers in Eastern Massachusetts should begin dialing all local calls using 10 digits (area code + seven digit phone number). We call this a Ten-number Number SM.

    From September 15, 2000 until April 2, 2001, all local calls can be dialed with the 7-digit number or with ten-digit dialing (area code + seven digit phone number).

    Ten-digit dialing is required on April 2, 2001 for all local calls within Eastern Massachusetts.

    • Telephone numbers are not changing.
    • Local calling areas are not changing. A local call is still a local call. A toll call is still a toll call.
    • Reaching emergency service providers (911) will not change.
    • You have a Ten-number Number even if you do not have one of the new area codes. When giving or getting a telephone number, be sure to include an area code.
    • Check any telephone equipment or service that dials or stores telephone numbers and reprogram it to dial ten digits for local calls.
    • Starting September 15, 2000, dial ten digits (Area Code + 7-digit telephone number) when you make any local call in Eastern Massachusetts (area codes 617, 781, 978 and 508).
    • If you have questions, you may call the Area Code Information line at 1-877-554-3685, Monday through Friday, 9 am - 5 pm EST.
    • Beginning April 2, 2001, if you do not dial local calls using the Ten-number Number, you will get a recorded message instructing you how to correctly dial your calls.
  • "Prestigious" area codes? Tell me about it!
    Back in the mid 80's Eastern MA went from one code to two (uh, 617 and 508, IIRC) and the sheer amount of bitching that came from folks that didn't want to be associated with the "farther away from Boston" 508 area code was insane! There were talks of lawsuits, the whole shebang.
    Now Toronto is going to 10 Digit dialling because the 416/905 split has become saturated. They've been telling everyone for the past year. Come January, I imagine there's going to be tons of bitching because "We weren't told!"


    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • Yeah, I can get email on my phone too. But what we seem to be talking about here is using an IP address (with dns, possibly) in place of a phone number.

    Just thought of another negative: people are always complaining about the lack of domain names as it is. Would we use a new TLD (.phone? .wireless?), or have something like phone://hemos.attws.com ? Which, again, would tie things to a single provider and would change every time you went w/ another service.

    --
  • In Australia we converted our phone number systema few years ago without any major problems.

    We used to have (0X) XXX XXXX numbers for metro areas and (0XX) XXX XXX for country areas. Now we have uniform (0X) XXXX XXXX numbers, with an area code covering one or two states. Given us a heap more numbers to play with, and now when i'm calling a differnt area within my state, it's actually *less* numbers to dial!

    Then again yankee's dont seem to like updating systems (the metric system instantly comes to mind)
  • We only started even having to use area codes for local numbers about two months ago.

    I too live in Northern Virginia (703), and I have no idea what you're talking about - I moved here in June, and the entire time i've been here, 10-digit dialing has been enforced.

    --

  • Re:Why didn't they just make area codes four digit (Score:3)

    by Chester K ( 145560 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:33AM (#577522) Homepage
    it would have been better in every way just to expand area codes to four digits

    Four digit area codes would introduce ambiguity into the actual meaning of the digits you dialed.

    Currently, the rules for dialing are relatively simple:

    Any call beginning with 2-9 is a number that consists of seven digits, except if the initial digit is followed by two 1's.

    Any call beginning with 1 is a number that consists of 11 digits, unless the next three digits are 010, in which case, the next three digits are used to specify a long distance carrier (220, for example), which is then followed by the remainder of the original number. (Originally the long distance carrier choice only needed to be proceeded by a 0, but recent changes in the phone network have required the extra 1-0).

    0#, or 0 followed by a timeout will get you to an operator. 0 followed by 10 digits will get you operator help for that specific number. 0 followed by 1, followed by other numbers is the format for international dialing.

    How would four-digit area codes fit into the system without creating any ambiguity? Perhaps if a direct call began with 11, but what about the other methods of dialing an area code?
  • I lived in Maryland when they made us start dialing area codes for the local calls in the DC suburbs- it used to be that I just had to dial a 7 digit number from the DC suburbs of Maryland (301) and get to Virginia (703) and DC (202). They started running out of prefixes, since they couldn't duplicate the prefixes within the suburban DC area. So we had to start dialing area codes to get to Virginia and DC. There was a huge uproar over that. You would have figured that life as we know it was going to cease to exist. It didn't, the phones kept ringing. Then they went to an overlay (multiple area codes covering the same area) and there was another uproar. It happened, and people got used to it. I moved to central Texas (512), and now I only have to dial 7 digits for a local call. It was a weird transition, but I survived (I can dial the area code first, but it doesn't make a difference). In the numbering plan for the area, we will be going to an overlay soon. And again, we will hear all sorts of uproar.

    Big effin deal. People will complain, then they will get used to it. It is a matter of growth and progress. People should be proud of the fact that they need more phone numbers- more people in the area, a larger tax base, people are getting better connected- it really is a good thing! It just shows how wired and high tech your area is.
  • You're asking a government agency (the FCC) to plan ahead and do something makes sense. Think about that.
  • I know the IPs I know because they're all on the same network and start with the same 6 digits, so all i really have to "remember" is the last 6.

    It's the same case with area code + number dialing. The area code is analagous to the network.
    with humpy love,

  • Why not also introduce more specific codes. In the UK, we have a lot of so-called non-geographic codes. In addition to premium and toll-free numbers, we have numbers billed as a local call wherever they're called from, and specific clusters dedicated to mobile phones and pagers (and since, in the UK, the callER pays all charges, not the callEE, this is even more useful).

    It always confuses me when visiting the US why this isn't in place - it's really handy, and I think businesses would appreciate it too.

    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • I don't know about any of you, but I find it hard enough to remember a 7-digit number. True, there is a limit to how many 3-digit prefixes exist in an area, so it may be about as easy as remembering 6-digits. With an extra 3, that puts it on the borderline of rememberability. IPv6 bugs me in this way too. As it currently stands, I can remember more than a few current IPv4 addresses, because consistent prefixes apply here, too. Within my university, everything starts with xxx.xxx, so all I have to do is remember the last two bytes, and most of the important stuff is on xxx.xxx.2 anyway, though that stuff actually has names (except when the name server is having problems, which is generally the only time I need to remember such things anyway). I also have a few friends on cable modems, but they're all in 24.xxx anyway. Also fairly easy to remember. All I have to remember is that they're on @home in the particular place they live, and the last two bytes. It's not much more difficult than a phone number, and certainly not more difficult than a phone number with an area code. But still, IPs are meant to be read by machines anyway, so quadrupling their length isn't the end of the world, and the benefits are great. Adding 3 digits to phone numbers is going to be really taxing, though. I have a hard time imagining phone use increasing by 3 orders of magnitude, or even two. Granted, one digit my not be enough do to inefficiencies in implementation, but I think two ought to do it quite well, and hopefully end the breakaway growth of area codes, too.
  • It doesn't work like that. America only has a unified dialing with places like Canada and the Carribean. To dial other parts of the world requires you do do something different, i.e. dial 011 + "international dialing code for relevant the country" before the call.

    If the FCC does introduce nationwide 10 digit dialing, there will still be areas within international dialing code 1 which are 7 digit, unless Canada follows suit, etc. But then again, as far as Americans are concerned, calling Canada will probably be a long distance call, and dialing will be no different than long distance within the US. The only confusion will occur for travellers (unless they're in Toronto, which already has or will shortly have 10 digit dialling.)
  • Any kind of plan involving a single identifier to reach a person anywhere would be accomplished>through creative use of DNS, and could involve actual names and words. The accounts themselves might possibly use a email-like name@provider kind of system. But I dream.

    Well, it looks someone already tought about that... It's called SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) (RFC 2543 [ietf.org]) I know it allows IP phone addresses like sip://user@host and support call forwarding and other nice stuff... and its much much simpler than H.323 [packetizer.com]
  • about nobody actually 'dials' a number anymore, at least not many people. Ok, what's the proper term for using a touch tone pad?

    "FCC Considering 10 digit punching"
    "FCC Considering 10 digit entering" ?????

  • We've got it in Denver already (Score:5)

    by grappler ( 14976 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:08AM (#577540) Homepage
    Denver has had this for over a year. Big deal.

    I think the phone companys should go straight to IPv6 and give every phone an IP address. Any kind of plan involving a single identifier to reach a person anywhere would be accomplished through creative use of DNS, and could involve actual names and words. The accounts themselves might possibly use a email-like name@provider kind of system. But I dream.


    -------
  • What email did for spam, V.O. I.P. will do for telephone solicitors. No thanks.

    Plus the idea that everybody gets assigned a static phone number for life - so now I can't even change it when I get harrasing phone calls. No thanks.
    ----------

  • If I remember right from Psychology class oh so long ago, individuals can only store 7 to 9 digits max in their short term memory.

    But in today's world of palm pilots, who needs short term memory?
  • In the UK things are a terrible mess because BT won't spend the money to clean it up.

    e.g. area codes can be anything from 3 to 5 digits and numbers anything from 6 to 8 digits. (I *think* all of the old 5 digit numbers are gone now)

    e.g. London

    (020) XXXX XXXX

    Cambridge

    (01223) XXX XXX

    Newcastle

    (0191) XXX XXXX

    Note how the local part (call a friend) varies in length, as does the area code. :-(

    There's no way to tell how to group the digits in a given number. You just have to knowl.


    Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
  • > The biggest problem, in my mind, is that it has long been rumored that humans are poor at memorizing sequences that are more than 7 digits long.

    That is why we CHUNK the long 10 digit phone number into smaller groups. It's MUCH easier to memorize a long constant in pairs or triplets, then it is to memorize a long stream of single digits.

    AAA - BBB - CCCC

    vs

    (X, X, X,) (X, X, X, X), (X, X, X, X)

    Cheers, where everyone knows your name :)
  • DNS? God, I hate having to "type" names to go with the numbers in my cellphone. I'd hate to try to do that on a regular basis.

    Of course, DNS WOULD help alleviate the whole "well, I switched providers, so my number is now..." syndrome. Assuming, of course, we don't get to the point where phone numbers really DO follow us around.

    My only fear is, "Yeah, you can call me at phone://goatse.cx" Not to mention all the likely spam...

    --
  • ... the second digit of all area codes is a zero or one...

    It used to be this way I think, but New York City now has a new area code, 646. I think other places have codes that break that rule.

  • People who get all upset over losing the "prestigious-ity" (sp?) of an area code are probably the same people who throw a fit when their uptime on their box gets trashed. It's just a number, get over it.
  • The reason for all this problems is the bad idea of a unified numbering plan (= all numbers in a country have the same length including area code).

    This fixed number length did not allow easy "escaping" for longer numbers and has led to the actual problems.

    An variable length numbering plan would have many advantages:

    - Different length area codes

    Short ones for big cities, longer one
    for small towns.

    See in germany, the area code for Berlin
    is 030 (two digits plus the '0'), but
    it can be as long as 034533 (five digits
    plus the '0').

    - Different length phone numbers

    If your area code length is variable,
    so the amount of usable numbers in this
    area code is variable. This means, while
    maintaining a maximum number length in
    total (as required by international phone
    exchanges), you can still have more numbers
    in the big cities. I personally think its
    insane to have different area codes for the
    same city like in the USA. Here in germany
    all lines in the same city maintain the same
    area code.

    - Easy transition

    Our town (rather small) once had numbers
    with three digits. When it occured that
    this might not be enough they said:

    Ok, let all numbers beginning with 'x' be
    four digits. They did this of course before
    using the first digit 'x' for any three
    digit number. This allowed to keep the old
    numbers while beeing able to greater the
    ammount of possible numbers.

    After a while this was still not enough,
    but in the meanwhile most of the old three
    digit numbers disappeared (they were withheld
    when the subscribers changed. For the new
    subscriber you can give out a new longer
    number), so finally they could reuse the
    numbers used for the old three-digit numbers
    for newly four-digit numbers.

    And because this was still not enough, they
    had other unused areas which they declared
    to be six-digit numbers. They put new numbers
    into this range, removed old numbers when they
    got them.

    As you can see, this is a very smooth and
    nice transition scheme. Nobody needs to be
    forced to get a new number, but you still
    can cope with the need for new numbers.

    - Direct dial-in to branch exchange

    Big companies usually have a number like
    123-0, -0 beeing the main line. You can
    direct dial people in this company if you
    know their extension, e.g. 123-101. And
    if three digits extension are not enough,
    you can make them longer as with normal
    phone numbers.

    So you know that your companies phone
    numbers all beginn with the same prefix,
    and you can directly map from extension to
    the phone number.

    So, you may understand why unified numbering plans are a bad idea, and variable length phone numbers are much more powerful. The question here is: Can -and will- the USA telcos lern from this?
  • It's the same case with area code + number dialing. The area code is analagous to the network.

    In most places I've been the area code has no relationship to the person you're calling. Cities with 10 different area codes that have no basis in geography, you just basically keep guessing until you get the right area code (and call 5 wrong people before you get it right)...

    ---------------------------------------------
  • In northern Oregon, (portland/salem area) They opted to overlay a new area code over the top of a new one. The fact that many pagers and cell phones have been added to the area was the reasoning. Many people wanted them to add a new area code for pagers/cellphones, but instead they just overlayed the area codes. Instead of dialing a different area code to reach someone on a cell phone, (which would be really easy to remember!!) now my dad has a new area code to dial his friend down the street. Even his two lines in his house have different area codes.

    ------------------------------------------
    If God Dropped Acid, Would he see People???
  • "Like other countries which may have numbers that are area code + either 7 or 8 digits long"

    Until just a few years ago, my parents in England had a 5 digit phone number. They've had a four added to the beginning. The area code has four digits. But area codes aren't of fixed length in the UK either. Other parts of the country have seven digit numbers. It's all over the place!

  • Question to the audience: do most of you actually remember and type numbers when you place a call? I don't think I've dialed a number in months. The vast majority of the numbers I called are just programmed into the phone and I push the speed dial button. Those that aren't are people or businesses that I don't call often, so I just go through information to find the number and connect me.

  • Re:Got it here (Score:3)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:50AM (#577593)

    So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?

    First off, it ain't just the people who have to learn to use the new numbers. It implies the need to update all the auto-dialing devices like alarm systems, speed dial numbers, ISP's numbers for modems, and fax machines. Yet, this isn't the whole of it.

    These 10-digit phone numbers have to be processed by telecom switches to make the calls go through. Check out: North American numbering Plan Administration [nanpa.com] for the latest news about proposed changes and their implementations. As others have pointed out, there were choices made at the outset about the formatting of telephone numbers that permitted the switches to make optimizations in processing the number - as it was being dialed. For example: Starts with a '2'? Then it can't be long distance. Check the local NXXs that start with a '2'.

    There is also the concept of permissive dialing. Even though it's NOT REQUIRED to dial the area code, I've long looked forward to being able to put in the whole telephone number (e.g. 1-212-345-6789) in my laptop's list of ISP's telephone numbers, and let the telco sort things out.

    Once the people had grown accustomed to using 10-digit numbers everywhere, then it would make sense to me to change from PERMISSIVE 10-digit dialing to MANDATORY.

    There are web sites and newsgroups dedicated to telephony (teh-LEF-oh-knee). Here's a newsgroup that I've found helpful: "comp.dcom.telecom" There's also a whole slew of useful sites accessible from google's telephony [google.com] area.

  • What I _REALLY_ would love to see is .. (Score:5)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:16AM (#577595)
    _ONE_ friggin number, that stays the same no matter where I move, and 2 spare digits on the end, so a cell, fax, pager, computer, all share a common number.

    i.e.

    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00 = phone
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-01 = cell
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02 = fax
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-03 = pager
    AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-04 = computer

    We have the technology, so why aren't we more interested in making things easier for ourselves!

    --
    The nice thing about standards, is that there are so many to pick from! - Anonymous

  • Got it here (Score:4)

    by Mr Z ( 6791 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:21AM (#577596) Homepage Journal

    We have 10-digit dialing here in the D/FW metroplex, and it works fine as far as I'm concerned. I've often wondered when they'd go ahead and just switch the whole nation. It's rather annoying to have to remember as you're traveling whether a given area is 10-digit or 7-digit. I haven't heard anyone complain about 10-digit dialing being annoying as comparied to 7-digit.

    So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?

    --Joe
    --
    Program Intellivision! [schells.com]

  • Re:Got it here (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @07:54AM (#577600) Homepage
    One problem is that with 7-digit dialing you know that if a call goes through then it's a local call.

    No, you don't.

    There are areas that have 7-digit toll calls. Correlation is not causation.

  • Hey, nows your chance to add a checksum to the phone number, and add code to the firmware of new phones to not bother accepting the call if its wrong.
  • They come out and set up this embedded system box somewhere in your house that hooks into your demarc and the cable company cable. It looks and acts like a VoIP transponder. It even has a UPS to ensure operation in the case of a power failure.
  • I mean, come on! Just about everywhere you go you have to use 10 digit dialing right now. I don't see this as a big step at all, as local telephone companies have been doing this for years. I suppose in some backwater place where the population is less than the crowd at the local football stadium it may be an issue, but for everyone else this is old news.

  • Why don't they just assign everyone a URL? Area Codes mean a little, in that you know what it is for people who live around you, but they seem to change so quickly. Besides, without area codes, the phone company will have to figure out a different way to charge per minute for what in actuality are local calls.

  • More than just *remembering* another few digits (Score:3)

    by Jeff Mahoney ( 11112 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:54AM (#577609)
    I'm sure the uproar isn't just over the ability to remember another digit.

    There's serious money involved in the switch, when companies have to reprint stationary, advertisements, business cards.. make sure their applications can handle longer phone numbers correctly.

    Seriously, just think about how many times when you enter your phone number while ordering something, if you mistype it -- it tells you that it's formatted wrong. That's just a small example of code that needs to be changed.

    Just food for thought..

    -Jeff
  • The public switched telephone network could benefit from variable-length dialing. Dial as much as you need to make the number unique; the rest should be considered "identical to your number."

    You'd probably have to terminate all dialing with the # key or something to make it work. This would render rotary phones unusable, but how much longer can we really afford to keep supporting these relics?
    --

  • There's serious money involved in the switch, when companies have to reprint stationary, advertisements, business cards.. make sure their applications can handle longer phone numbers correctly.

    All the stationary/advertisements/business cards/web forms I've seen include an area code already. What's to reprint? What's worse is when an area switches area codes (Suffolk County in NY being the most recent example I can think of). Now that caused a headache.

    The FCC's plan, as others have already pointed out, won't result in the reprinting of billions of pieces of paper - it'll just make the telephone dialing process take an extra second or two. The horror!

  • 12 digit numbers? (Score:3)

    by Wattsman ( 75726 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:23AM (#577632)
    Oh, great. I can see films in the future now.
    "Hold on, let me get something to write down your number. It's 127 000 000 001. O.K."

  • Beginning with the digit "1" or "0" (Score:3)

    by Philom ( 24273 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @08:09AM (#577684)
    ... tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0."

    I don't know about you, but to me this makes more sense if it refers to a "1" or "0" at the beginning of the current seven digit portion of the number. Seven digit numbers cannot begin with a "1" or "0" because that would indicate a long distance call, but if everyone were to switch to ten digit dialing, there would be a whole new range of xxx-0xx-xxxx and xxx-1xx-xxxx numbers that weren't usable before. This would make 25% more numbers possible in every area code. The new ten digit numbers could still exclude "1" and "0" from the first position to help avoid confusion over long distance dialing.

  • Re:Beginning with the digit "1" or "0" (Score:3)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @08:13AM (#577699) Homepage Journal
    You're correct. Here's the relevant quote from the L.A. Times since a lot of people seem to have missed it:

    FCC officials contend that 10-digit dialing would create tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0." Currently, ones and zeros can't be used at the beginning of a seven-digit local number because they signal that the caller is making a long-distance or operator-assisted call.

  • Just add two more digits (Score:3)

    by laetus ( 45131 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @09:03AM (#577719)
    Just add two more digits: AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-01 = phone1 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-02 = phone2 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-03 = phone3 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-01 = cell AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02-01 = fax1 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02-02 = fax2
    ----------------------------------

  • Sparse matrix problem (Score:3)

    by kerpen ( 211235 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @08:18AM (#577741)
    Before we get really ambitious with something like a common number for all your devices, let's get local number portability. If local numbers were portable there would be *no shortage* of telephone numbers. 10 digit numbers with no 1 or 0 to start the area code or the exchange is 8^2(10^8) = 6.4 billion phone numbers. With a population of ~275 million that's more than 20 phone numbers for every man, woman, child, and little baby in the country.

    The whole problem is that there are some exchanges with tons of unused numbers and others that are full. Each area code has 8 million numbers. If we got local number portability, all 8 million would be used. Now *that* would sure beat overlays and splits, let alone mandatory 10 digit dialing just to reclaim 0 and 1.

  • Re:Got it here (Score:4)

    by Frank T. Lofaro Jr. ( 142215 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @09:21AM (#577793) Homepage
    No, the 1 and 0 would not be allowed at the beginning of an area code, only at the beginning of a prefix (it is still a bad idea, IMO).

    Now with mandatory 10 digit dialing, and area codes >= 200, here are the possibilities:

    Local call: NXX-XXX-XXXX
    Long distance: 1-NXX-XXX-XXXX

    X is any digit, N is any digit >= 2.
    I use that notation later on in this post; it is
    standard telecom notation.

    The switch can tell the two apart. One means long distance, 2 or greater is local. It could not if
    the area code was optional, e.g. is it 180-0555 or 1-800-555 that is being dialed. If 180-0555 is a real phone number, it would conflict with 1-800-555-xxxx. I know the switch could use a time out, but having the wrong number get dialed due to a delay in dialing is generally a bad thing.

    The article doesn't say area codes would be switched from NXX to XXX. Just prefixes.

    I recently wrote code which validates that a phone number is at least somewhat legit. It does not check lists of prefixes or numbers, but checks that it is NXX and not N11 and not 555. That would have to be rewritten.

    Remember, not too long ago, prefixes were NNX and area codes were N0X and N1X. And we only had 800 for toll free. Now we have 800, 888, 877, 866 (recently opened - in actual use) and 855 (theoretically open - if not in use will be soon), talk of 844 in a couple of years and maybe even 833 and 822 eventually, NXX prefixes, NXX area codes and we are still running out of numbers! The article says we may need 11 or 12 digit dialing even with XXX prefixes.

    Why are we in such a crisis? I know people have more phone numbers for computers, pagers, faxes, cell phones, etc, but is it really THAT extreme?

  • Re:Got it here (Score:3)

    by billybob2001 ( 234675 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @06:30AM (#577815)
    What's the problem?

    I've had 10-digit dialing since I was old enough to reach a phone.

    2 hands, 5 digits on each = 10 digits.

    Of course, back then, phones really had dials, with 10 digits on them.

  • Web site on NorAm numbering plan alternatives (Score:3)

    by isdnip ( 49656 ) on Wednesday December 06, 2000 @11:55AM (#577893)
    I've got a web site that discusses an alternative view of North American Numbering Plan expansion. The industry committee (no, consumers don't count) is leaning towards allowing 0/1 at the beginning of a prefix code, since it'll always be after an area code, and then stretching the area codes to 4 digits (using the second digit 9 as transition, or inserting 1 or 0 after the area code). I find this far from ideal.

    North American Numbering Plan Forum [delphi.com] presents my alternative. It ends up with 8-digit local dialing (4+4), which should be adequate for all but the largest metro areas (which will need two area codes). It also sorts the area codes into geographic, nongeographic/functional and an expanded freephone (800, etc.) space.

    Implementation of such a change will take years, because there are necessary transition phases, the first of which is to move to mandatory 10-digit local dialing. Assume that that is inevitable; the only question is when. The plan I discuss has no flag days, plenty of "permissive" time for every stage of transition, and makes new numbers predictable.

    The web site is a Delphi board, which means that it has its own discussion forum. I dont' know if it's a good idea to advertise it on /. :-) but hey it could use some activity!

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