When entering numbers in my cell phone I have always just put XXX-XXX-XXXX without the “1” at the beginning, but my mom was on the phone with a Bellsouth guy and he told her this:
He said to put a “1” in front of all numbers in your directory, not just in from of long distance numbers because he said that when you go from area to area, if you’re too far away from their towers, you will drop the call or not have good reception. He said since they had reciprocal agreements with so many other companies though, you will pick up another company’s tower easier if you have the “1” in front of all the numbers as a long distance call. Especially if you’re traveling, this will help.
Does it sound like there’s any truth to this? I’ve never really had too many calls dropped when traveling, but should I reorganize my numbers?
Cell doesn’t need it. I can testify with actual experience, having driven across country twice with a cell with numbers entered as 555-342-859 with no problems.
Moreover, YOUR CELL ALWAYS HAS THE SAME AREA CODE. Cell calls to the 510 area code are “local” for me regardless of whether I’m in Oakland, CA, or Sioux City, IA.
“local” and “long distance” really only apply to land-based lines. The distinction continues to be made for cells in terms of charges accrued, not for the technology.
However, if you have a multi-band GSM phone and travel out of the country, you will need to add +1 in front of all numbers in North America. (The “+” represents the international dialing code. This changes from country to country. The local network replaces the + with whatever access code is required. For example, in North America, the + would be replace with 011.)
Which is probably what the Bellsouth guy meant, or what someone meant that the Bellsouth guy had misunderstood.
If you put +1 in front of all numbers in your directory that are US numbers (or +47 for all Norwegian numbers in my case) they’ll go through as normal when you’re in the US and when you’re abroad you won’t accidentally call a local phone, when you actually wanted to call your uncle back home.
Of course, if you’re like me, you forget this for half the number and will have to check the number every time anyway.