In article ,
Martin Underwood writes
Wasn't it '40 [not 30] cents more for the next [long pause] three [long
pause] minutes'?

I thought it was a mix of the two, but Googling consistently gets me 40
for all three verses.

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In article , Aidan Stanger
writes
Over here they give businesses the option of buying shorter numbers.
Don't they do that at all where you are?

No.

and, therefore, more expensive. You have to plan for
the longest number.
Making some numbers longer shouldn't be any more expensive than making
all numbers longer.

The equipment needs to know *which* numbers have each length, so it
knows when to stop collecting digits and start connecting the call. It's
better if large blocks (e.g. 01234 xxxxxx) are all the same length, and
worst when adjacent blocks differ (e.g. 01234 5678x and 01234 5679xx).

The more variation, the bigger the internal tables need to be.

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In message , Clive D. W. Feather
writes
In article ,
Martin Underwood writes
I didn't know that? So did they use the letter suffix to denote the year?

Initially, yes.

If
so, did it start at the same time as in Great Britain - ie A=1963, B=1964
etc?

Except only London used A.
I believe that Staffordshire was the only other local authority to do
so.

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On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 12:25:52 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

"Martin Rich" wrote in message
.. .


As I understand it, the idea is to use the format XXX 01 PP from March
2051, and XXX 51 PP from September 2051 where XXX are random letters
and PP is a place designator, so the present system could actually
last until 2100

Seems logical that they simply reverse the current format, as they did in
the mid-80s when ABC 123 Y was followed by A 123 ABC.


In fact the precedent goes back much further than that: 123 ABC and in
some areas 1234 AB numbers were issued when the ABC 123 numbers
started to be used up (late 1950s). The intention to use A123 ABC
after ABC 123Y was certainly there from the inception of the year
suffix system in 1963

Martin

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...
In article , Stephen Osborn
writes
Actually the local exchange simply routes all numbers that start with a 0
to
the associated trunk exchange (properly called a DMSU, for Digital Main
Switching Unit).

False.

That is what I was told by my source in a telco. As I said (in a different
post)
my knowledge about network infrastructure is as it affects numbering.
Probably some Chinese Whispers along the way.

Oh, DMSUs have all been replaced by NGSs.

Well, they are still referred to as DMSUs by the (albeit non-hardware)
people telco I know.

If it is a non-geographic number (07*, 08*, 09*) the DMSU routes it to a
special platform that does really clever lookups.

Or routes it to another telco.

Indeed, I was simplifying.

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regards

Stephen

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...
In article , Stephen Osborn
writes
'phONEday' was in 1995 and all STD codes that did not start 01 had a 1
inserted.

Except for the five that got completely changed.

I meant that all STD codes that did not start 01 were changed so that they
did start 01.

That was Easter Saturday so there more time than usual to sort out any
problems, also the network load the following week would be lower than
normal.

Even so, it almost broke. Over a quarter of calls were misdialled on the
first day; 30% was the "the network will break" line.

Surely, that shows the right date was chosen.

Reading was changed to 01734 in 1995 as part of phONEday but that number
was
already getting close to full and the change to 0118 was already planned.

Not so.

Planned as in will happen in the near future, not as in an exact timetable.

It was not implemented until c. a year later to let people get used to
the
previous set of changes.

That would have been silly, given it wasn't done anywhere else. If it
was certain that Reading would be about to fill, it would have been
better to do it with the other five.

The others basically had to changed so it made sense to do it the same time
as phONEday. Given that Reading did not *have* to be done then it made
sense to implement the change a while later. Two changes in, say, four
months would have been rather annoying for the people of Reading (and anyone
who called there).

Nobody was quite sure whether Reading was going to fill up, or if
somewhere else would beat it, nor what the best long-term strategy was
with something like 30 areas approaching trouble. So 0118 was held in
reserve for the next place needing transition - this turned out to be
Reading.

Somewhere else could have 'filled up' before Reading but it was not likely.
If they had they would have got 0118.

regards

Stephen

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:07:32 +0000, Clive Page
wrote:

The first transition was the introduction of the "020" code running in
parallel with the old codes, but with the local numbers staying at seven
digits. During this short period you could call (e.g.) London Transport
enquiries from a telephone in London by dialling any of the following:
"222 1234" or "0171 222 1234" or "0207 222 1234" so that the new area
codes were then genuinely "0207" and "0208".

I can see how you are thinking, but the "new area codes" were *never*
"genuinely 0207 and 0208". During the period of parallel running,
subscribers in London could continue to dial the 7-digit number if
calling within the 0171 or 0181 code areas, or the full number with
the 0171 or 0181 prefix, *OR* they could dial the new-style number
which began 020, but only in its entirety.

But then the second transition occurred, with three components: firstly
0171/0181 codes were withdrawn, secondly local numbers changed from
seven digits to eight, and thirdly the "new" area codes changed from
0207 and 0208 to just 020.

What actually happened was that 0171/0181 codes were withdrawn,
meaning that you could no longer dial the previous numbers in their
7-digit or 11-digit forms, and at the same time it was now possible to
dial the 8-digit forms of the new-style numbers.

One notes with surprise that an extraordinary number of shop-fronts and
commercial vehicles appear to have been re-painted in the brief period
during which the area codes were 0207 and 0208, and not to have been
re-painted afterwards.

But the area codes were *never* 0207 and 0208 - this is just a (very)
commonly-held misconception because the changeover wasn't communicated
well enough.

Charlie

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On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 15:11:59 GMT, "John Shelley"
wrote:

Martin Underwood wrote:
"John Shelley" wrote in message
news
snip

Ah, so new suscribers in an area potentially get a brand new district
number that's unrelated to that of all the other subscribers in that
area? Yes, I suppose that's one way of solving the problem. Do all
subscribers in one area get one new code and all those in another
area get different code: can you still say "xxxx [a new code] is
Harrow, alongside yyyy [the existing code]" or is the
code-to-location mapping lost?

The code to location mapping is, I believe, becoming blurred. My BT phone
is 020 8863 xxxx, and my NTL phone line 020 8357 xxxx.

This is indeed the case. I used to work in Intelligent Networks,
setting up number translation services for large national companies
who would want all callers to be routed to their nearest local office.
Firstly, they would invariably give us their requirements in terms of
postcodes, which would necessitate a long explanation to the account
manager of how postcodes were a system used by the Royal Mail to
distribute letters and parcels, and there wasn't a one-to-one mapping
to STD codes, and secondly, it was usually impossible to meet their
requirements when it came to non-BT numbers, as cable companies seemed
to assign their Manchester (for example) 1000-number blocks to cover
the entire city, in the order customers were signed up...

Charlie

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"Charlie Pearce" wrote in
message ...
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 23:07:32 +0000, Clive Page
wrote:

But the area codes were *never* 0207 and 0208 - this is just a (very)
commonly-held misconception because the changeover wasn't communicated
well enough.

I can understand why people were confused: they thought that it was a
like-for-like change from 0171 - 0207 and 0181 - 0208.


Going off at a tangent, slightly, how are 07xxx mobile phone codes
allocated: did different networks (Vodafone, one2one etc) buy blocks of
codes and allocate from them, or are the numbers allocated completely at
random? In other words, for a given code (eg 07748) are all numbers with
that code connected via the same provider?

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...
In article , Martin
Underwood writes

Except only London used [the suffix] A.

I never knew that. So did all other parts of the country keep the older
formats (eg ABC 123, 123 ABC, AB 1234) for an extra year and then change
over in 1964 to ABC 123B? Typically British: change something, but don't
change it everywhere at the same time!

I know that initially the changover of letter occurred on 1 January, until
they realised that this caused a rush in car orders just as garages and
distributors were returning from their Christmas holidays. I believe the
change to August-to-July "years" was in 1966. So does that mean that:

A, B, C ran from Jan-Dec
D ran from Jan-Jul
E onwards ran from Aug-Jul

making D a short "year"?


Of the pre-1963 formats, was there any difference between the ABC 123, 123
ABC, AB 1234 formats other than that one gave way to another when an
individual authority had allocated all its numberplates? I ask because the
plot twist at the end of the film "The League of Gentlemen" hinges on an
observant boy noticing that the registration on the robbers' truck should
have related to a car rather than a lorry - does this mean that numberplates
were of a different format in the two cases?

Anyone know why Northern Ireland never adopted any of the year-letter
formats. I'd have thought the army would have wanted a unified system so
that British soldiers' private cars were not quite so obviously different
from Northern Irish residents' cars, so as to lessen the chance of them
being IRA targets.