Colin McKenzie wrote:

I seriously wonder what percentage of London to London calls between
fixed lines - which can be dialled without the 020 - actually are
dialled without the 020.

100% of mine are.

--
John Ray

John Ray wrote to uk.transport.london on Tue, 28 Dec 2004:

Colin McKenzie wrote:

I seriously wonder what percentage of London to London calls between
fixed lines - which can be dialled without the 020 - actually are
dialled without the 020.

100% of mine are.

Mine too.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 18 December 2004

In article
, Colin
McKenzie wrote:
I seriously wonder what percentage of London to London
calls between fixed lines - which can be dialled without
the 020 - actually are dialled without the 020.

Most of mine are dialled including 020: my phone's memory needs
the 020 prefix entered for Caller ID to work and most outgoing
calls are to people with numbers in the memory.

--
Tony Bryer

In article , Tony Bryer
writes
Most of mine are dialled including 020: my phone's memory needs
the 020 prefix entered for Caller ID to work

That's unusual: usually Caller ID lookups in the directory only check
the last 6 digits.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

I seriously wonder what percentage of London to London calls between
fixed lines - which can be dialled without the 020 - actually are
dialled without the 020.

Does leaving out the 020 actually work reliably when you aren't using a BT
line or are redirecting calls via another provider? I always use the 020
myself regardless.

On a sort of related subject, at one London based company I worked for we
were moving to a brand new office and so having a new PABX installed. The
IT Manager hit on the idea of having the code for the outside line be "0"
rather than the usual "9" (or indeed anything but "0") which seemed a neat
trick to me. With a bit of special handling for external numbers not
beginning with "0" such as directory enquiries (which would probably have
been done anyway), it meant you never thought about whether a call was
internal or external, you just dialled it. By forcing all London calls to
be made using the full number it also meant the staff didn't have the option
of getting confused with 020 and 0207/8 and local numbers when the change
came along a few months later. It also gave the supplier's techies
something to think about as they'd never been asked for it before.

G.

Graham J wrote:
I seriously wonder what percentage of London to London calls
between
fixed lines - which can be dialled without the 020 - actually are
dialled without the 020.

Does leaving out the 020 actually work reliably when you aren't using
a BT
line or are redirecting calls via another provider? I always use the
020
myself regardless.

I never dial the London area code from a land line, but dial the
8-digit number. From mobiles you have to dial the full number with the
London area code.

Friheej

In article , Graham J
writes
Does leaving out the 020 actually work reliably when you aren't using a BT
line or are redirecting calls via another provider?

It's an Ofcom requirement that you can leave out the area code when
dialling within the same code. [Note that mobile codes like 07973 are
not "area codes" for this reason.] So from any 020 line it is possible
to dial all other 020 numbers without the code.

This applies equally in 023 and 028, where not all intra-code calls are
local.

On a sort of related subject, at one London based company I worked for we
were moving to a brand new office and so having a new PABX installed. The
IT Manager hit on the idea of having the code for the outside line be "0"
[...]

That's how the PBX at Demon worked for many years; you dialled an
internal number or an external one without having to think.

With a bit of special handling for external numbers not
beginning with "0"

IIRC, our usual practice was to dial 141 in front of these (since that
was recognised and also escaped out to an external line, just like 0).

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:07:52 -0000, "A H"
wrote:

All day long the lazy journalists of the UK media have been giving out the
emergency telephone number for the SE Asia earthquake and subsequent tidal
waves in the format:

'0207 008 0000'

Soon we can expect to see/hear '0203 xxx xxxx'

Is this the only country in the world that can't cope with simple number
changes?


At the risk of going even further off topic, the answer is "no".
It's the same in Spain.

My phone number was originally Benitachell xx xx. Then it was
changed to 649 xx xx. Finally, it was given the "All Spain" number
of 96 649 xx xx. This makes sense - 96 means Alicante Province, 649
is my local exchange and xx xx my personal number. All Spain has
(or had) a nicely logical sequence - province, exchange, 4 figure
number.

Now we're officially being told to quote our numbers as three groups
of three - 966 49x xxx so that more numbers can be allocated.

Nobody is. Telefonica won't win.

Bill, whose old UK number will forever be FOOts Cray xxxx, or maybe
0208 300 xxxx but never 020 8300 xxxx
--
Bill Hayles

http://billnot.com

Bill Hayles wrote:

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:07:52 -0000, "A H" wrote:

All day long the lazy journalists of the UK media have been giving out the
emergency telephone number for the SE Asia earthquake and subsequent tidal
waves in the format:

'0207 008 0000'

Soon we can expect to see/hear '0203 xxx xxxx'

Is this the only country in the world that can't cope with simple number
changes?

Not only is it not, it's not even the only country where they needlessly
add digits that make the numbers harder to remember.

At the risk of going even further off topic, the answer is "no".
It's the same in Spain.

My phone number was originally Benitachell xx xx. Then it was
changed to 649 xx xx. Finally, it was given the "All Spain" number
of 96 649 xx xx. This makes sense - 96 means Alicante Province, 649
is my local exchange and xx xx my personal number. All Spain has
(or had) a nicely logical sequence - province, exchange, 4 figure
number.

Now we're officially being told to quote our numbers as three groups
of three - 966 49x xxx so that more numbers can be allocated.

Nobody is. Telefonica won't win.

Good - they deserve to lose! I only hope they are humiliated in defeat!

Phone numbers are more easily remembered in blocks of seven digits
(usually written as xxx xxxx because that's easier to read). But far too
many phone companies are forgetting this and adding extra digits, with
the stupid objective of keeping all the phone numbers the same length -
even the ones that are only used for modems to dial out on!

Bill, whose old UK number will forever be FOOts Cray xxxx, or maybe
0208 300 xxxx but never 020 8300 xxxx

How about 020 8 300 xxxx? IIRC that's how they're now listed in the
phone book.

In article , Aidan Stanger
writes
But far too
many phone companies are forgetting this and adding extra digits, with
the stupid objective of keeping all the phone numbers the same length -
even the ones that are only used for modems to dial out on!

If you make the numbers different lengths it makes the routeing logic
more complicated and, therefore, more expensive. You have to plan for
the longest number.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: