11 Digit Dialing Comes Home to New York 706
Traicovn writes "The NY Times (free registration, yadda yadda) is carrying an article about 11 digit dialing coming to the city of New York for all phone calls, including inner city calls. Yes, that means even to dial across the street you will have to dial 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Eventually as the phone number system fills up because of more people having cellphones/pager/fax and a home/office phone line we may see this happening in more cities across the nation or the NANPA may have to intervene by making phone numbers longer in general."
Better Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Welcome to the club (Score:5, Interesting)
Atlanta has 10 digit dialing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Trunk Hunting (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this what you're looking to do? It works well and doesn't cost anything.
What about how Europe does it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in America all the numbers are mixed so when you dial a number you can't be that sure it's a cell. This has caused the numbers to fill up FAST.
Are the number's really all used up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why so many digits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why so many digits? Why are we running out of phone numbers?
And, while we're at it, why not assign each individual a phone number that they keep for life, no matter where they move, like a domain name? I'd imagine that modern telco equipment could support this by now.
And again US catches up with the rest of the world (Score:4, Interesting)
We've been using 11 digit number in the UK for years. A 5 digit area code and a 6 digit number. It's not exactly a hard concept to grasp.
Number portability (Score:2, Interesting)
Are they blocking number portability? That is, can I take a Verizon number that I've had for years at my business and sign up with a dial tone competitor and keep the same number? (Yes, phone switches are smart enough to handle this and route a number anywhere on to any network.)
With Michael Powell at the FCC as a sock puppet of the RBOCs, things like number portability that might promote dial tone competition get squashed. It would also reduce the need for new area codes because the numbers that we do have would get used more efficiently.
But it is easier to get customers to carry the burden and expense of dialing extra digits (think of reprogramming speed dial numbers and fax numbers on machines). Then you can minimize competition and keep profits and campaign contributions maximized.
Re:Why the '1' ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, same in Boston. We recently got some new area codes added to our local calling area, so we have to dial 10 digits instead of the previous 7. We certainly don't have to dial the '1'.
By contrast, however, in Rhode Island (401 for the whole state), when New England Telephone became NYNEX (yes, it was always a subsidiary, but when they actually changed the name), we had to dial '1' + 7 digits if we were calling outside our local calling area, but within 401. Then they became Bell Atlantic, and we had to dial 1+401+7 digits outside the local calling area (but within 401). Then they became verizon, and now you just dial 7 digits anywhere within 401, and it's up to you to remember whether it's a local call or a toll call.
So, I think basically the "1" is at the whim of the phone companies, and it is no longer the reserved digit signifying "long distance". Unless of course the NYT got it wrong. Someone who works for the phone companies (or has hacked into their switches - Hi Kevin!) should explain to us why New Yorkers need to dial a 1 when they have overlay codes, and those of us elsewhere (Boston, DC) don't.
Re: Actually, it all started in NYC... (Score:3, Interesting)
646 has at least been planned for at least 8 years I would say, and now many people in Manhattan have 646 area codes for their home phone. 347 is also appearing in Brooklyn. 917 has been a national oddity for longer than I can remember. I would say 10 years minimum, probably longer.
Thus you only need to 11 digit dial when you are dialing someone who does not have a number in YOUR area code.
It seems really ridiculous to require 11 digit dialing in your own area code. Perhaps if we didn't USE area codes but had an entirely random string numbers 11 digit dialing as a requirement is obviously a necessity.
Re:Trunk Hunting (Score:2, Interesting)
Keep at them until they admit it exists.
Worked great for rolling over my landline to my cell phone (and thus voice mail). Atleast until I dropped my landline and say buh-bye to the bastards!
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
<number>.pitea.bd.se
"pitea" is the city. "bd" is for Norrbotten, the equivalent of a state in the USA. "se" is Sweden.
Quite short for being international too and you'd just need to add a number when necessary (i.e. not restricted to a special format of, say, 9 digits).
But there might be some "funny" moments when someone hack the DNS to redirect a "phone address" to a pr0n number, redir CowboyNeal's number to Hilary Rosen, etc.
Or if a DNS with its backups get an error and you have to phone using IPv6 format to get to the right place: 3ffe:8114:2000:240::1
Re:Trunk Hunting (Score:3, Interesting)
Why does a person need three numbers? Why does a business need 200?
Yes direct dail is cute, but unnessary. Most places only list the master number any way. Even on caller id, so if I place a redail I get the master number, so why have direct lines? Even for those few that a direct number can help... why give it to all?
This is same agruement with public and private IPs. Why does company that bought a T1 get a class C, too?
Finally - I have lived now in both 10 and 11 digit dail areas. (Orlando, FL and Northwestern IL) - and to say one thing -- it sucks. The big problem is that you are unable to tell when you make a long distance call until the bill comes at the end of month. The papers in this area report that 11 diigit will be fore every one. Becuasr they want to assign you a number life - that follws you around.
So in the future what is phone number... look to the SS.
Re:Atlanta has 10 digit dialing... (Score:3, Interesting)
all of middle Georgia (which is essentially the metro-Atlanta area) is free along with parts of north Georgia. Any call to 770, 678 and 404 is a free call from within those area codes and parts of 706 constitute a local call from within 770, 678 and 404. We looooooove our phone system here.
Re:and it's 1234567890 what are we fightin for? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:and it's 1234567890 what are we fightin for? (Score:1, Interesting)
So before you call that new number, you do *xx, get the stutter dial tone, then dial the new number. The switch routes it somewhere else, and the far end reads it back to you: "fifteen cents per minute".
This should work both for intrastate stuff (aka "10 inches no lube rates") and the rest that goes through your separate long distance company.
I've been waiting at least 10 years for this. I used to run a BBS that made a bunch of calls to throw netmail around, and it would have made my life a lot easier.
Bonus points for having another star code which returns the same data as some kind of encoded data, ala caller-ID bursts. The computerized dialer (COCOTs, etc) people would probably cream their pants with something like this available.
Not out of numbers (Score:2, Interesting)
Computers today are easily capable of dealing with the problem on a finer grained basis. For example, a cheap home PC can store and retrieve info concerning tens of millions of phone numbers in real time. Each new phone number could be allocated from a central source individually. No big deal.
Another thing that bothers me is that if you have a dial 7 area, you often can't dial 11. I should be able to dial the country code too! The phone number should be an address, not a route. I don't want to hear "You must dial a one...". If the computer knows I needed it, it should just complete the call.
On my cell phone, I always put in the dial 11, so that it still works when dialing from out of the home network. Don't dial by number, look it up by name and tell it to get a connection.
What I want is to be able to copy my phone book between my home phone, cell phone and, for editing, my computer.
different in Montana (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe you should complain (Score:3, Interesting)
1. We need more phone numbers.
2. We'll add a new "overlay" area code, meaning that it covers the same geographical area as the existing area code.
3. People won't remember to dial the new 1+areacode, because they're used to dialing only the last 7 digits when calling within their own geographical area.
4. We should therefore force customers to dial 1+areacode with every call, even when it's technically unnecessary, to train them into using the extra digits.
This, of course, was offensive to those of us in the area who consider ourselves less stupid than Pac Bell assumes. Many of us are perfectly capable of dialing the extra digits when necessary, even for local numbers, and were annoyed at the prospect of having arbitrary inconvenience forced onto us. As I remember it, enough of us complained that Pac Bell got the message, and changed their policy.
Re:Miscellaneous (Score:3, Interesting)
So confusing, I remember that I was calling a local Boston number that for weeks I thought was incorrect because I was dialing a 1 first and eventually I learned that it was because I was dialing the one that it didn't work.
Re:And again US catches up with the rest of the wo (Score:2, Interesting)