Not exactly an emergency, but my college roommate lives in the UK, and today is her birthday. I didn’t get my act together in time to send her a card, so I just called her house from my cell phone. Perfect timing – she just went to take the dog for a long walk. Her husband gave me her cell phone number (cell phone is a new development for her), and I tried dialing it, but can’t seem to get through.
The format I used was +44-XXX-XXX-XXX-XX. I know there are some quirks about UK phone dialing (such as the zero for their land line that is only dialed from within the UK, not internationally), so am I missing something?
From a US land line, dial 011-44-xxxxxxxxxx. Many cellphones allow you to put the number in as +44 xxxxxxxxxx; this is so that you don’t have to save the international access code with the number, which can lead to problems using saved numbers when travelling. The international access code is 011 here in North America, 00 in the UK, 010 in Australia (I think), etc.
People in the UK traditionally write their numbers as (0areacode) local number: (01234) 567890. The 0 on the area code is not actually part of the area code; it’s the “trunk dialling digit” that tells that an area code follows. When dialling the number from outside the UK, you leave the 0 off the area code.
Thus the UK number that locals might most often write as (01234) 567890 can be dialled in three ways:
[ul][li]From within the 1234 area code: 567890.[/li][li]From elsewhere in the UK: 01234 567890.[/li]From outside the UK: +44 1234 567890. You replace the + sign with whatever your international access code is. From the US and Canada, you would dial: 011 44 1234 567890.[/ul]
UK internal numbers are 09999 999 999 . To dial in from the US you need to start with the US exit code 011 , then the UK country code 44 , and then drop the leading 0 from the UK internal number.
Another thought: in the UK, the numbers of mobile phones are all herded into an area code that starts with 7, instead of being mixed among other phone numbers like in North America. It is may be more expensive to call this mobile area code than it is to call a UK landline. Some phone plans may not allow it… might be good to check, especially if you’re using a phone card or something. And check that you have international calling enabled.
That’s a good point. Try sending her a text message - they are usually pretty cheap to send internationally. Plus, it’s only 8:30pm here in the UK, and pretty damn cold, she’ll be back near her home phone soon
I know how to dial internationally in general, and to the UK specifically (I did just call her land line successfully). I’m just looking for info specific to dialing UK mobile phones.
I am calling from my cell phone via a prepaid international calling account with a US access number. I don’t need to dial 011 first.
If my job will just calm down for a few minutes, I will try dialing by dropping the initial 0 in the mobile number.
Thanks all! Otherwise, at least her husband will tell her I tried…
Hmm. Prepaid international calling account with a US access number? Do you have to dial the country code when you use it? If so, drop the 0 from in front of the UK area code.
(I’m assuming you use this something like: hear dial tone…<dial US access number>…hear dial tone…<dial country code>…<dial national number>…get connected.
If that doesn’t work, then maybe your international calling account has restrictions on dialling the more expensive mobile numbers.
That is the traditional form, but the ITU now recommends against using parentheses; digit groups (such as the country code and area code) should be separated with a space.
Yes, I do have to dial the country code (you have the sequence right). Sigh…work is crazy today, so I didn’t get the chance to try again. Maybe over the weekend…they have little kids and go to bed early, so I don’t want to call this late. There are no restrictions on dialing cell numbers (at least there shouldn’t be!), and I have plenty in the account to cover the call.
Yes, I totally agree. When I was in electronics school and we were studying the phone system, they told us that in North America, at least, the round brackets surrounded items that were optional.
In a North American area with seven-digit dialling, you’d write the number as (416) 555-1212. If there was ten-digit dialling, you’d leave out the brackets: 416 555-1212. This is how Bell writes the numbers, anyways. Most people seem to write them as 416-555-1212. “International” style: +1 416 555 1212.
(It was also in electronics school that I learned that one of the two North American trunk dialling digits, 1, is the same as the North American country code (also 1). Which is why we can write our numbers as 1-416-555-1212 and have them dialled properly both in and outside North America…)
For the service that Eva Luna describes? I believe she’s talking about one of those systems where you have to dial a full US-style phone number to access it, and then get another dial tone, at which you could dial the destination number. At least that’s the way it worked using Bell’s Calling Card, but maybe it’s different now.
I haven’t used one of the phone cards commonly sold in convenience stores, though. Here’s one chosen at random: you dial an access number, enter a PIN, then dial 1 or 011, then the destination number.
For the record, this is the service I am using. It’s super-cheap and has always worked fine for me; I have it set up for PIN-less dialing from my cell phone and home land line. (And yes, it works more or less as described above; I dial a full US-style local access number, then follow menu prompts to dial the international number.) Only $0.015 to UK land lines, and I’ve never successfully called a UK mobile before, but I am somewhat befuddled by the zillion different rates to UK mobiles. Can anyone explain the difference?
As mentioned above, there is a single ‘area code’ group for mobiles that begins with (0)7, regardless of where you are in the country.
Re. the other listed rates, the first one is general landlines.
Not sure what “NTS Local Plus” means. Googling it only gives rates for other similar services. I’m suspecting it might be a particular kind of (0)8 number that is charged at local landline rates regardless of where in the country you call from.
Other numbers starting with (0)8 are premium-type services.
Then there are three mobile rates given - one for most mobile services, one for provider O2, one for “H3G” which I think might be 3. Presumably O2 and 3 have been picky in their negotiations with the call service.
The 1.5c/min rate is for calling a standard UK landline: a regular number, nothing special.
The 80c/min rate is for calling a premium-rate number that is sort of like a 900-number in the States. These are mostly in area codes that start with 8. (So are the UK equivalent of toll-free numbers, so not every number with an 8xxx area code is expensive.)
The “UK-MOB” rates are to numbers on different mobile carriers (O2, Hutchison, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone). Note that these are significantly more expensive than landlines. This is because incoming calls to UK mobiles are free for the mobile, but someone has to pay for the airtime.
It all balances out: we in North American pay for receiving mobile calls, and therefore people calling us don’t pay any more than calling a landline in the same area code; in the UK, people pay more to call a mobile, and the owner of the mobile pays nothing to receive calls.
Having all mobile numbers in area codes that start with 7 helps to distinguish them for billing purposes; in North America, since we can port numbers between landline and mobile there is no way to distinguish them for billing purposes short of looking up every one individually.
I have no idea why there are Ukraine rates listed there. I think the website needs some quality control.
