David E A Wilson <david@cs.uow.edu.au> (05/17/91)
K_MULLHOLAND@unhh.unh.edu (KATH MULLHOLAND) writes: > Is there a list available of the number of digits to be expected when > dialing overseas? In many countries numbers are not of fixed length - for example here in Australia the internal format is two to four digit area codes (all starting with zero which is omitted when calling from overseas) and five to seven digit local numbers. A quick look at the OTC Country Codes page in my phone book shows worse examples: Area Code Austria Wien (Vienna) 1 Salzburg 662 Innsbruck 5222 Japan Osaka 6 Yokohama 45 Nagasaki 958 Ishikawa 9896 David Wilson Dept Comp Sci, Uni of Wollongong david@cs.uow.edu.au
FLINTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Fred E.J. Linton) (05/23/91)
In <telecom11.362.10@eecs.nwu.edu>, K_MULLHOLAND@unhh.unh.edu (KATH MULLHOLAND) asks: > Is there a list available of the number of digits to be expected > when dialing overseas? For some countries, yes, for others no: > for example, the university phone number of one of my colleagues in > Hagen, West Germany, is long enough that some "expected number of > digits" routine at the switch of my default LD carrier tripped over > it, giving me a recorded rebuke that the number I had dialed was too > long for the international country I was dialing to. With the intervention of an overseas operator's supervisor, however, the call was successfully completed -- and yes, the number was *not* too long. Elsewhere, of course, numbers can be "too short" -- in Warsaw, most phone numbers use six digits -- for these, the country-code/city-code combination is 48/22. Newer phone numbers have seven digits, of which the first is "6", and for these the c-c/c-c c is 48/2. After the 48, it would seem that eight digits are expected. BUT: there are also *three-digit* phone numbers -- for LOT airlines reservation service, for a radio-taxi company, for a variety of other services. I've been told that +48 22 919, for example, should ring through (never having wanted to call a Warsaw cab from this side of the Atlantic, however, I've never tried it :-) ). Fred E.J. Linton Wesleyan U. Math. Dept. 649 Sci. Tower Middletown, CT 06457 E-mail: <FLINTON@eagle.Wesleyan.EDU> or <fejlinton@{att|mci}mail.com> Tel.: + 1 203 776 2210 (home) or + 1 203 347 9411 x2249 (work)
Bruce Oneel <oneel@heawk1> (05/23/91)
[Text deleted about number of digits for international dialing.] My favorite one was in 1983 or so, I was tech support for a computer site at a US Military base in Germany. They didn't give the guy manuals so I called him two or three times a week. The first time I did it my supervisor mentioned that I'd have to talk to the "German" operator. I thought that Germany was direct dial so I just fired the number in and got some poor person who didn't speak English. I told him I was sorry in German and then was told by my supervisor that this military base had numbers that were one digit too long for Germany so AT&T just dropped the extra digit. So, I called the C&P operator. No, she said, Germany is direct dial and before I could protest, I was talking to this poor German again. Let's try again. Called the C&P operator, asked for an AT&T operator. Got one, explained problem, so she direct dialed before I could protest and now the German was getting a mite pissed. One more time ... local C&P operator, got an AT&T operator, got an AT&T international operator and explained my situation. Nope, Germany is direct dial and so I got a now sputtering German. Last time, C&P operator, AT&T operator, AT&T international operator, FDR international operator ... Correct Number!!! It only got slightly better each time I did it. Bruce [Moderator's Note: You are better off sometimes doing as I do in these cases: Ask the AT&T operator to connect you to a supervisor at the IOC. Don't bother explaining anything until you reach that point. PAT]