Parentheses around geographic area codes are not archaic.


They are a core part of ITU-T recommendation E.123 : "Notation for national and international telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and Web addresses" which can be found at:  http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.123/en

See also:  http://revk.www.me.uk/2009/09/it-is-not-44-0207-123-4567.html

Dave wrote on Dec 5^th, 2009 at 9:28pm:

However many digits, up to five, it's hardly a huge burden. Plus there's only one additional code any particular person would have to add, which would be the same as their own, which they presumably already know!

Dave wrote on Dec 5^th, 2009 at 9:28pm:

I fail to see why full number dialling wastes numbers. On the contrary, retaining local dialling wastes numbers. With full number dialling, all the current numbers would be available, plus ones with local numbers beginning 0 and 1. It would also mean national numbers would eventually no longer need to start with 0, opening up a huge range of additional area codes without having to add an extra digit to everyone's numbers.

Dave wrote on Dec 6^th, 2009 at 2:27pm:

Eventually moving to new, shorter codes to give more local numbers without resorting to overlay codes.

Although, in effect, this does amount to lengthening numbers, I suppose. As we know, numbers are presently 10 digits, not 11, so if the national dialling prefix "0" becomes part of the number, that's an extra digit. And if the next digit for geographical numbers can be anything rather than just 1 or 2, again that makes numbers harder to remember.

Wasn't the original idea that the whole country would move over to 02x numbers? This is actually a half-way house to full number dialling as it frees up numbers that were previously national dialling only. For example 01703 012345 wouldn't have been available but is now 023 8001 2345 so can be used.

catj wrote on Dec 6^th, 2009 at 11:20pm:
I'm far from convinced that the system here is such a nightmare. Within a thirty or so mile radius of where I lived in the UK, the area codes 01892, 01622, 01634, 01732, 01689, 020, 01322 and 01959 were in use, possibly along with others (memory has faded a little). This really is no different to say the situation in New York city with its five area codes serving a population of eight or so million. At least the system here is consistent and understandable with fixed-length area codes and a standard format. In comparison, the Ofcom-administered system is a mess. If one set out to deliberately design from scratch the most useless and complex system, then the result wouldn't be far removed from the UK numbering scheme. Whilst our system is far from perfect, and it has its particular challenges, it works very well here, in Canada and in quite a few other nations and territories, both near and far.

May I throw a spanner of reality into the debate. (I would be grateful if someone would correct my facts and terminology.)

"Local" numbers can only have meaning if they reflect people's sense of locality. The locality that is defined by a certain code serves to reinforce that sense or even to create it. The importance given to this varies greatly and it can serve for good or ill, especially when one gets into issues around where boundaries fall.

Before STD was introduced, this was highly significant. When distinct local charging rates were offered it was still relevant, although not as critically as some assume. Charging zones were defined as groups of coded areas and "local" calls were those within a zone or to adjacent zones. We are now left with the option to omit the area code when dialling as the only significant feature. (One must note that charging zones still exist, even if "local" and "national" rates are generally the same. Indeed Talk Talk has now reintroduced the distinction to its tariffs.)

Since the universal implementation of STD it has been considered proper to always provide the full string of digits to be dialled when quoting a telephone number in formal communications. There was a messy period whilst distinct inter-exchange short access codes were retained, but I understand that these have now gone. We now have "national numbering" which means that the "number" is what you have to dial to access it (this may not make much sense to those with no memory of the time when numbers were only on exchanges and accessing the exchange was a separate process.)

The point of interest for me is the extent to which people (informally) quote and record numbers without the full national dialling code. How many vans and shop fronts now carry only the latter portion of the telephone number for a "local" business? How often do local newspapers and other publications do the same? How often is the area code considered unnecessary when giving one's number in a telephone conversation or personal letter? How many address books omit the full code for "local" contacts?

My own experience of Birmingham and London suggests that there are very few 0121's in Birmingham address books and phone memories and that there would have been relatively few 01's in London. The split and subsequent re-unification of the London area will however have probably created sufficient confusion to ensure that there are many unnecessary 020's, often with punctuation following the subsequent 7, 8 or 3. (Those who wish to use names in caller display are denied the opportunity to record the short form of the number in their phone memory as CLI is provided in national format, which could explain some of the unnecessary dialling.)

With my limited experience, I am keen to know how far the area code reflects people's sense of locality away from the urban conurbations. As the world becomes smaller, I wonder how far the need to have our sense of locality reinforced through recognisable telephone area codes becomes lesser or greater. The technical issues are now modest as they do not impose limitations in the way that they once did, technology now presents opportunities to do whatever best serves our needs.

The fundamental problem for Ofcom is always about how far into the future one should look, the degree of confidence in the accuracy of one's estimations of what may happen and how far one can sell the disruption caused by any current change to those who will be affected. The public expects Ofcom to have (and also to have previously had) perfect knowledge of the future and therefore to never have to make any change. The only tolerable change is a correction of errors it has made previously, so it can never win, as it is always seen to be making or admitting a mistake.

Apart from the specific consideration of alternative methods of achieving the stated objective, the basic question is of whether there is any purpose in adopting measures to conserve visible geographical integrity in the numbering scheme, or accept that a number is just a number and the only aspect worth preserving for the public is the 01 or 02 to indicate that it has a specific geographic termination point. The, possibly very wide, area within which this point falls could always be discovered by consulting a database of the information needed to maintain charging zones (given that these are to remain).

I hope these thoughts are of some interest. I would be keen to read other observations and any necessary corrections to this posting.

idb wrote on Dec 7^th, 2009 at 3:08am:


Google just told me:  New York — Area Code: 212, 315, 347, 516, 518, 585, 607, 631, 646, 716, 718, 845, 914, 917

So, I'd think that it's a pretty good bet that anybody living there is almost certain to have to dial the full 1-nnn-nnn-nnnn for virtually every number they need to call.  

Quote:


Well it wasn't designed from scratch, of course - It's all down to history.  Originally, every city, town, village and hamlet had it's own manual telephone exchange.  Your phone number would be, say, Medway 21.   As they got bigger, numbers were tacked on the front, so you may end up with Medway 654321.  Originally you'd pick up the phone, speak to the operator, and they would put you through.  Eventually, you could dial other numbers on your own exchange directly, but "trunk" calls would still need connecting by the operator.  Although there were often "short-cut" codes, such as 91, that would take you to an adjacent exchange. (apparently it was possible to get most of the way across the country by daisy-chaining these, but it made for very long dialing sequences, was not officially supported, and as you used lots of local connections, call quality suffered!)  When STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing) came along, the GPO needed a way of mapping exchange names to numbers, so they used the first two letters of the exchange name, and a sequential number to differentiate them.  So Medway became ME4.  With a 0 on the front to indicate it's an STD call, that was 0634.  As most phones were supplied with letters marked on the dial next to the numbers this meant people only had to remember one extra digit, the 4 in this case.

As we don't have our towns arranged around the country alphabetically, this distributed the numbering about fairly randomly, but this was beneficial in that it was unlikely for another 063n to be nearby, so making it less likely that people would be likely to dial the wrong one.  Bear in mind that people were much less likely to have any dealings with anybody non-local in those days.

By this route, all but the very smallest of exchanges got their own area codes.  The tiny ones would usually end up tacked onto the nearest big town, using the towns STD code and the shortcut code to reach their exchange.  This is why we ended up with numbers such as (0xxx xxx) xxxx.

Obviously, as things have got sorted out, as number use has increased, things have got a bit more rational; village exchanges have been absorbed into the main towns, the NGN and mobile numbers got separated out, and the whole industry got opened up.  

Obviously there is still some way to go, however I think it's a little more logical to be able to tell at a glance the usage of, and thus approximate cost to call, a number.  Yes, some areas are running out of numbers, but I'd rather they move to shorter area codes than overlay another code, as otherwise you end up with the situation we had in London where, as soon as 071/081 came in, people stopped being able to dial local numbers for a proportion of their contacts, and indeed, often didn't know what prefix to dial for any given number.