With the 1+? I’m not doubting it, I’m just surprised. Here we semi-optional 10-digit dialing (state line, different area codes on each side) - there are times you need to dial 10 digits, other times not. I guess it depends on if an exchange is common to both and in the general area. Some companies have purchased the same phone number on both area codes, others have "don’t forget the " in their advertising.
With an overlay I would have thought 10-digit dialing would suffice - not sure what the 1+ adds.
I find it annoying that in some places you’ll get an error message if you use ten-digit dialing for a local number while other places mandate it. I don’t always know what’s a local number so I’d prefer having ten-digit dialing be required.
Some of that I think depends on the switching equipment and if it can handle 10-digit dialing. I’m sure all modern switches can, but that could actually explain why @carrps needs to 1+ everything - there were enough older switches in his area that it was easier to just mandate 11-digit dialing for everything then try to explain to people when 7, 10, or 11 digit dialing would be required.
When we got Subscriber Trunk Dialing in Australia, there was a period when you could dial long-distance to local numbers by using the long-distance prefix. It both messed up the billing and provided local call itemization. The phone company eliminated it.
Oregon was an early adopter–we got the 971 area code in '99 and 10 digit dialing a year later. Right across the Columbia in Vancouver WA I think they’re STILL allowing 7 digit dialling, which really weirds me out. My cell phone has a 503 area code, which is really difficult to score these days, I think they only come up when someone releases their number–my Google voice number is a 971 and no 503s were available.
Back in the payphone days, I remember using the 10 digit codes locally because I was calling collect (as I rarely had change on me). Otherwise it we always had 7 digit dialing here. My grandparents in a smaller town had four digit dialing.
And if you use a landline, you still have to do 11 digit calling to any other area code. But none of them are local. I find it odd they don’t autodetect it by now, since they can detect it enough to tell me that I need to add the 1 and try again. Plus we still have free long distance (as part of our fixed pricing deal that includes our Internet).
I guess it’s just “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The 1+ at the front is called “toll guard” and is required by various regulations.
Dialing “1+” then 10 digits is the same idea as an “Are you sure?” dialog box before a purchase. It constitutes their proof that you explicitly agreed to pay long distance prices for this call according to their LD carrier’s published tariffs.
Largely, but not entirely obsolete in these days of generally free LD & inter-LATA service. But not 100% obsolete yet, so it remains in the regs and in the switches.
Of course the switching computer could be programmed to accept 10-digit or 1+10-digit as equivalent. But that defeats the “Are you sure?” feature. Which is the only reason it’s there.
My parents tell me their first phone number was two longs and a short. Back when I went to MSU in the 1970s, all campus wide all you had to dial was the last five numbers. My first dorm phone number was super easy, 31313. Of course now they don’t even provide landlines in the dorms anymore. Ditto in state government, to this day the last 5 numbers got you anyone in the central office. They still have some landlines, but many employees are issued cell phones.
So what’s going to happen when we run out of numbers? Add another digit at front or end?
And voicemail… my wife won’t let me but the greeting message I’d like to have is “If your call is important to you, leave a message. If it’s important to us we’ll get back to you”
Real short version is that the problem gets serious around 2050. So a decision on what to do needs to happen around 2035 and the transition needs to start in the most critical parts of the country around 2040.
There are several proposals, but the likely one is to add a digit to the area code (the ‘NPA’ in the argot) and to the first 3 digits of a local number (the ‘NXX’ in the argot). At first the new digit will be the same everywhere. So for an old phone number of 234-567-8901 the corresponding new phone number might look like
2934-9567-8901.
Then real quickly they’ll start issuing new NPAs or NXXs as needed with other digits in the added position. This will provide roughly 100 new numbers for each existing number. That oughta take us to the historical end of “telephone numbers” as a way of addressing communications services.
I’ve always thought the better approach would be to simply add an additional final digit. If the number already existed at the time of the changeover, you would just repeat the last digit - easy to remember. So if your number was (123) 456-7890, it would become (123) 456-78900. If you saw a business card or a billboard with a phone number from before the changeover, you would know to simply repeat the last digit when calling.
How much time would that kind of expansion buy us?
There are plenty of unused numbers out there. The problem is that the telcos usually get batches of 10,000 numbers at a time which are reserved for them to hand out to their clients only. These never (or rarely) get used up.
Our city (Montreal) is about to get a third area code, at a time when I barely know anyone using the second area code which was assigned about ten years ago. There must be a lot of “hoarded” phone numbers out there.
The same way that you make 176.32.103.205 memorable for people. People seem to have little difficulty in going to that particular address.
Not that anyone actually remembers phone numbers these days anyway. It’s all in their phone. Is 648-126-7854 particularly memorable? (randomly generated number, please don’t call in case it actually connects to some poor soul.)
Aye, that’s the challenge. We’re still dealing with a phone system in which a not-insigificant number of phones are still dumb (or, at least, not truly “smart”), and a not-insignificant number of users who are still manually entering phone numbers (which, in many cases, they know from memory) when they call someone.
A changeover to any sort of phone “addressing” that goes away from a fairly short string of numeric digits as the address would likely require both of the above to change.