[QUOTE=Balthisar]
I’ve just gotta ask – what the hell is the deal with the phone system here? I had to add a “1” to every telephone number in my cell phone book because the Bell system otherwise bitches at me about a number being long distance. Well, who cares? If it knows it’s long distance, just patch the damn call through.
Now on a land line I want to make a call, so I dial 1 plus the ten digits and get screamed at because it’s not a long distance call, and I shouldn’t be dialing a one.
Finally, when I’m in different areas of the GTA I either can or can’t use my cell phone’s phonebook again because suddenly a number is no longer long distance and I shouldn’t be dialing the 1.
Holy crap – we used to have all of these inconveniences with analogue switches back in America, but cell phones have never cared a whit about using or not using the digit 1. From terrestrial lines, you can unfailingly dial 1 plus area code and reach your next door neighbo(u)r if you want to use more than seven digits.
The real pain in the butt is when receiving an incoming call not in the phonebook – it shows up with only the 10 digits, without a 1. Now to call the guy back, I can’t just hit the call button. I’ve got to write the number down and manually call the person back (okay, part of the blame is the crappy Motorola phone that doesn’t have a number edit function).
(I won’t even go into the 15% sales tax, $15 pitchers of beer, bagged milk, and unfailingly beautiful parks system – 51st state, my butt.)
[/QUOTE]
<phone geek checking in>
Welcome to the horror of inconsistent dialing plans.
That’s dialing, not numbering… the North American Numbering Plan, which both Canada and the USA use, is rather consistent. But dialing has to do with what additional digits you put around the actual phone number so that you can dial it from a given location.
Ontario landline phones have “toll alerting”, which means that you dial a 1 before the number for long distance (i.e. a “toll” call, one which is charged by the minute), and you do not dial a 1 before a local call (one which is not timed, may be of any duration, and is included in the flat rate you pay each month for basic service.
What’s more, Ontario’s toll alerting is mandatory: you cannot dial a 1 before a local call.
When toll alerting was implelented, you could dial a toll call in the same area code using only the seven-digit local number. Thus, you would dial as follows:
a local call in the same area code: XXX XXXX.
a toll call in the same area code: 1 XXX XXXX.
a toll call in a different area code: 1 XXX XXX XXXX.
Area codes and local numbers were arranged so that the landline phone system could automatically detect when an area code was being dialed, and thus ‘know’ how many digits you were dialing. The system would know when enough numbers had accumulated, so that the call could be automatically connected. (In earlier versions of the switching equipment, each individual digit drove part of the switching system as it was dialed!)
There was very little local calling to another area code, but when it did occur, there were special arrangements of local numbers so that you would only need to dial the seven-digit local number in any case, ignoring the different area code: XXX XXXX.
Cellphones are different. Since they have a send button, the user lets the system know how many numbers there are, and the system does not need to figure it out. Many cellphones store numbers as 1 XXX XXX XXXX, and GSM phones even store them in full international format with a leading + (to indicate the international access code).
People dial stored numbers from their phones’ memories, and the cellphone system figures out how to dial the call based on the location of the user and the destination.
Meanwhile, among the landline phones, time passed.
They got rid of seven-digit toll calls. Now, all toll calls had to include the area code, even if the destination number was in the same area code as the caller. (Some of our area codes are pretty damn big.) So for a toll call, we always dialed 1 XXX XXX XXXX.
Then local ten digit dialing came in.
In local areas with more than one area code, we now dial XXX XXX XXXX, whether its in the same area code or not. (The Toronto area has four area codes accessible locally from downtown Toronto: 416, 647, 905, and 289.)
Ten-digit dialing is spreading to greater and greater areas. Of the dozen or so area codes in Ontario, only 807 and 705 do NOT have ten-digit dialing.
So now we have 1 XXX XXX XXX for a toll call and XXX XXX XXXX for a local call.
Long-distance phone rates are much cheaper than they used to be, with many flat-rate plans covering all of the province, all of Canada, or even all of North America.
The need to warn of long-distance toll calls is much less than it used to be. Mandatory toll alerting is no longer necessary!
All NANP calls in Ontario should be dialable as 1 XXX XXX XXXX, local or not. Local calls can omit the 1 if they want to.
It’s not like they can’t do it; the system is smart enough to distinguish the calls and alert the caller. Just put the call through. I don’t care whether it’s toll or not.
The alternative to toll alerting is to use the 1 to indicate that an area code follows. This is widely done in the States. You use the 1 before an area code whether you are dialing a local or a long-distance call.
Since more and more non-toll-alerting areas in the States have ten-digit dialing as well, they end up dialing 1 XXX XXX XXXX for everything.
I believe that the long-term plan is to have everyone do ten-digit dialing. Then we won’t have to worry about whether to include the area code; it’ll just be part of the number. Maybe we can drop the 1 then, and let it just be the country code of the NANP, used only when calling from abroad.
But we should get rid of mantatory toll alerting. Allow “1+the number” on all NANP calls in Ontario!
Let’s light a fire under someone’s butt to do it.
This has been your phone rant for today.
