London is getting 020 4xxx xxxx numbers soon. Seems like the existing 020 3/7/8 ranges are running out of numbers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49523759

Still won't do anything about all the people who write London numbers incorrectly as (eg) 0208 456 7890 rather than 020 8456 7890.

I wonder if there is still any old paperwork around with 0204 as the old code for Bolton.

It doesn't help that the first paragraph of the article says:

Quote:

Telecoms regulator Ofcom announced it is introducing a new 0204 number range to help Londoners "stay connected".

I await the Daily Mail article bemoaning the introduction of yet another code for London, like they did when (020) 3 was launched.

Earlier today, the Metro had the headline
"London to get new telephone 0204 area code to cope with demand"
proving the headline writer had not seen Ofcom's press release. The headline was subsequently corrected.

Ian01 wrote on Aug 30^th, 2019 at 5:40pm:

Earlier today, the Metro had the headline "London to get new telephone 0204 area code to cope with demand" proving the headline writer had not seen Ofcom's press release. The headline was subsequently corrected.

Its entirely Ofcom's fault in their previous OFTEL guise (I think unless it was before their time) as they let the genie out of the bottle by splitting the single 01 London area in to 0171 and 0181 and then deciding to join it up again with 020.

Most of the public aren't highly numerate and probably also part Aspergers suffering like most of us here are (the number of people in call centres who want to give their own DDI phone number or confirm my mobile number in random digit order and not with a clear paused between prefix code and main number block following the prefix code  is quite incredible) so once OFTEL/Ofcom had screwed up the rest of the confusion was inevitable.  Also Ofcom have never done any tv, newspaper (eg Standard) or other prominent advertising to explain that there is only one London 020 area code now and that 3 and now 4 prefixed numbers are merely new additions to the available 020 ranges.

I don't know if 020 4 is likely to be used by anything other than scammers peddling fake investments, carbon equities and fine wines (the main people who called me from 020 3 numbers) unless there are actually any new physical phone exchanges associated with the 020 4 block.  However I would assume that all the real physical phone exchange numbers will remain on 020 7 and 020 8 blocks (ex 0171 and 0181).

And of course the your internet has gone wrong and we can take over your computer to rob you and other similar scammers in India can fake any CLI they like and useless BT happily passes it through without having a check in place to block it because the number isn't allocated to anyone.  Although if BT did that I expect they would start cloning real telephone numbers that are in use and OFCoN would be too useless to find a technolgical way to have this blocked.

I have one friend who has an 020 3 number for his home phone.

But I suspect that most are used by businesses. Legit or otherwise.

allegro wrote on Sep 13^th, 2019 at 6:13am:

I have one friend who has an 020 3 number for his home phone. But I suspect that most are used by businesses. Legit or otherwise.

My home phone starts 020 3 and I have a VoIP number that starts 020 3.  Not uncommon.