Robert Kaplan <kaplanr@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> (03/16/90)
The phone number of Alex's Pizza here in Waltham is 647-5522. Of course, from Brandeis that means dialing 9-647-5522. Naturally any number of people will forget and dial just 6475522, which the system reads as 6475. 6475 is a student phone number in one of the dorms, the occupants of which now answer their phone, "Alex's Pizza, may I help you?" Seems to me that if I were assigning numbers here, I would shy away from using ones whose first three digits were the same as the local CO's exchanges, namely 647, 890, 891, 893, 894, 897, and 899. And in fact, no numbers of the form 89xx are used on our phone system. Would it have been that complicated to not use 647x either? Just one of those things that shows the difference between adequate system design and excellent system design, I suppose. Scott Fybush Disclaimer: This may not be my own opinion. "Help me, my home phone is a COCOT!" [Moderator's Note: I had the same problem for awhile several years ago. My office extension was 7262; the carry-out bar and grill on the first floor of the office building had the number RANdolph (726) - 2xxx. Invariably -- almost daily -- five minutes before the start of the lunch hour at 11:45 my phone would ring. Somebody ordering their lunch would be on the line. Some had the courtesy to apologize, while others would say nothing and just click off. Still others were profane *toward me* before hanging up. This was in 1968-69; our phone system was a centrex on a 5-Xbar switch. PT]
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (03/17/90)
In <5259@accuvax.nwu.edu> kaplanr@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Robert Kaplan) writes: > from Brandeis that means dialing 9-647-5522. Naturally any number of > people will forget and dial just 6475522, which the system reads as 6475. It works the other way too (sounds like deja vu, doesn't it). Some years ago, we had a data line put in at work (must have been around 1980 or so; when having a 212A data set meant all sorts of fuss to install a special line with an RJ-45-somethingorother with an exclusion key phone, etc). It was the only phone in the place where you didn't have to dial 9 to get an outside line. People often forgot that, and would dial 9-xxx-yyy-zzzz and get connected to 9xx-xyy-yzzz. This was before the days of dial 1 for long distance, so the call would go through to some random long distance number. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"
David Tamkin <dattier@chinet.chi.il.us> (03/19/90)
In <5259@accuvax.nwu.edu> Scott Fybush had written: > from Brandeis that means dialing 9-647-5522. Naturally any number of > people will forget and dial just 6475522, which the system reads as 6475. Roy Smith responded in TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 180: | It works the other way too (sounds like deja vu, doesn't it). | Some years ago, we had a data line put in at work (must have been | around 1980 or so). It was the only phone in the place where you | didn't have to dial 9 to get an outside line. People often forgot | that, and would dial 9-xxx-yyy-zzzz and get connected to 9xx-xyy-yzzz. | This was before the days of dial 1 for long distance, so the call | would go through to some random long distance number. That doesn't quite add up. The only way 9xx-xyy-yzzz would have reached another area code (if that's what Roy meant by saying "long distance" and showing ten digits) is if the first x was 1 or 0. Since no area code begins with 1 or 0, how could anyone who put an unnecessary 9 in front be trying to call 9-1xx-yyy-zzzz or 9-0xx-yyy-zzzz? Maybe if you had eight-digit intra-NPA toll dialing there, people were trying to dial 9-1-Nyy-zzzz and dialing to area code 91N but never completing a call because there were only six more digits; if N was a 7 (or a 2 before Georgia was split), the area code was invalid so the call still got nowhere for a different reason. Somehow, though, I find it hard to accept that any area has *ever* had eight-digit intra-NPA toll dialing and ten-digit inter-NPA dialing at any time in history. Now, let's say that the person was trying to place an operator-assisted call with 0+ and dialed an unnecessary 9. 9-0-NPA-NXX-XXXX, where the area code didn't begin with 8 or 9; if 903 had already been changed to 706, didn't begin with 3; or if 904 had not yet been split from 305, didn't begin with 4. But all area codes to date are N[0/1]X; the P would be 0 or 1 and thus could not begin a valid prefix in area code 90N. Again, no call completed. Next, maybe the person thought 1+ was needed before calls outside the area code. We still run into the same problem with the P digit as in the preceding paragraph; if N is 7 (or 2 before Georgia was split) we don't even get a valid area code. [I did just see a newspaper ad where a number in Itasca, Illinois, was printed as (708) 150-XXXX, but I honestly believe that the way it was printed won't work. It must have been a typo for Itasca prefix 250 or, if that part of Itasca has Bensenville service, for 350.] Now suppose the person dialing the extraneous 9 was trying to place a ten-digit call to another NPA. 9-N[0/1]X-yyy-zzzz. The N was never 0 or 1, so the call got placed to a local number, 9N[0/1]-Xyyy, assuming 9N[0/1] was a valid prefix reachable with seven digits. I can believe that, but the result would be an intra-NPA call. Finally, let's say the person was trying to reach local number NNX-zzzz. (Ten-digit dialing to other area codes is a good indicator that there were no N[0/1]X prefixes nearby.) Dialing an extra 9 sends the call to 9NN-Xzzz; again, it doesn't get out of the area code. I just don't see how adding a 9 in front of a valid dialing sequence can reach a valid inter-NPA number until we go to NXX area codes. Roy, I think you remembered it wrong. There must have been a lot of wrong numbers, some of which might have been inter-LATA, but none of which were inter-NPA. David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us BIX: dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570
Bill Fenner <wcf@hcx.psu.edu> (03/19/90)
In article <5259@accuvax.nwu.edu> kaplanr@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Robert Kaplan) writes: |Seems to me that if I were assigning numbers here, I would shy away |from using ones whose first three digits were the same as the local |CO's exchanges, namely 647, 890, 891, 893, 894, 897, and 899. And in |fact, no numbers of the form 89xx are used on our phone system. Would |it have been that complicated to not use 647x either? PSU's PBX requires you to dial the last 5 digits of the phone number. PSU's exchanges are 862-, 863-, and 865-, so PSU phone numbers dialled from on campus start with 2-, 3-, and 5-. Now State College, the surrounding town, has exchanges 231,234,237,238,353,355,359. This presents a lot of collisions, but it seems that so far the namespace is so large that there are no 862-3xxx or 863-5xxx numbers assigned. One confusing thing is that State College recently added another exchange, 867. Dialing instructions can no longer say "Drop the 86", because 7-xxxx from on campus gets you nowhere. Another wonderiffic thing about the PSU phone system is the recent addition of 911 emergency calling. Now, the off-campus local-call prefix used to be 9. In offices (863 and 865), off-campus toll-calls would be prefixed with 8, while in the dorms (862) it would be 91. (10xxx worked from the dorms but not from offices.) Starting on the second of March, at 5:30 pm, all off-campus calls were to be prefixed with 8. The only call you could dial starting with 9 is now 911. If you attempt to dial an off-campus number with 9 now, you get a bored-sounding OTC (Office of TeleCommunications) employee saying "You have dialed 9 for an off-campus number. It is now necessary to dial 8 before these calls. Please refer to your centrex users guide for further information." You get intercepted to this recording after dialing the prefix (I.E. 9-234 - recording.) If they can do this, I don't see why tthey couldn't just keep 9 as the access code. Maybe to reduce accidental 911 calls. Bill Fenner wcf@hcx.psu.edu ..!psuvax1!psuhcx!wcf sysop@hogbbs.fidonet.org (1:129/87 - 814/238-9633) ..!lll-winken!/ [Moderator's Note: In addition to his sysoping duties at Heart of Gold (hog) BBS, Mr. Fenner maintains a Fido/Telecom Digest gateway service. Mail to 'Telecom Digest 1:129/87' from any Fido BBS is forwarded here to the Digest automatically. Thanks Bill! PT]