dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) (06/10/90)
Sweden has recently introduced a service called "Sverige Direkt" (Sweden Direct) which is a list of free telephone number that you can call from a number of countries and you will reach an operator in Sweden. You can the ask for a telephone number in Sweden, and the called party will be charged for the call. I understand that Bell already has a similar service operational. The list of countries and numbers for "Sverige Direkt" are as follows Belgium 11 00 46 Canada 1800 463 8129 Finland 9800 1 0460 Italy 172 0046 Holland 06 022 0046 New Zealand 000 946 Spain 900 99 0046 Great Britain 0800 89 0046 USA 1800 345 0046 It is interesting to see the irregularity of the telephone numbers above, which makes it almost impossible trying to remember them. As I can understand there are two reasons for this irregularity: 1. There is no generally used "800-number". Some similar numbers are used in GB (0800) and Finland (9800). Although you can't see that from the above table, in Sweden we use 020 as our "800-number". We could change that into 0800 as 08 is the area code of Stockholm and no telephone numbers start with a 0, but I haven't heard about any such plans. 2. The telephone numbers for each national "800-number" are allocated locally, so it is not so probable that the same number can be used for the same purpose worldwide. Maybe it is too late now, but a portion of the telephone numbers under "800" could be allocated to a world wide number plan. In the numbers chosen above, I can see attempts in that direction by chosing numbers containing Sweden's country code 46. I wonder if I would reach a Danish operator by dialling 45 instead, or a Norwegian operator by dialling 47 instead. An alternative solution that would make it possible to dial the same number toll free anywhere in the world would be to introduce a pseudo county number for toll free calls. The country code "800" seems to be ideal for this purpose. Finally a strange thing I noticed in the table above: why are there different numbers from Canada and the USA? /Dan Sahlin email: dan@sics.se [Moderator's Note: The different numbers for Canada and the USA may be because the operator in Sweden uses the inbound line to see where the call came from in order to bill it correctly, and it may be there are different rates from Canada to Sweden than from the USA to Sweden. PT]
hwt@uunet.uu.net> (06/28/90)
In article <9087@accuvax.nwu.edu> foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu (Jody Kravitz) writes: >dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) writes: >>The list of countries and numbers for "Sverige Direkt" are as follows >> Canada 1800 463 8129 >> USA 1800 345 0046 >I couldn't resist trying these numbers. The Canadian 800 number was >intercepted with "Your call cannot be completed as dialed <pause> >6194T". Well, from Canada the Canadian number gave an unfamiliar but European dial tone. I hung up before it was answered. Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions | Not one of 100% of ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 | Americans