wnp@relay.eu.net (wolf paul) (10/26/89)
Tom Hofman writes: > From article <telecom-v09i0467m02@vector.dallas.tx.us>, by dik@cwi.nl > (Dik T. Winter): > > Austria 00 > > 00432. For Luxembourg in stead of 00352 > 0041 for Switzerland and 0049 for Germany works as well, at least in a > small village near Innsbruck where I have tried it. Anyway, the whole > system, especially dialling the OWN country code for Luxembourg, looks > extremely Austrian :-) Well, if they wanted to make some special arrangement for dialling Luxembourg, even though the reasons for this escape me, their own country code offers itself as the best candidate: it will never be needed, in Austria, to dial Austria; thus they can re-use it for some other purpose without fearing that it may be reassigned by the CCITT at a later date. If they pick any other 00XX combination, at some later time it may be assigned to some other country, which currently shares a country code with some other country, i.e. if Canada should ever be given its own country code, or some of the Carribean island nations. There are some other features of the Austrian phone system which look much more typically Austrian, such as the fact that it has the second-most expensive fee structure in Europe; that while they have finally introduced "toll-free" numbers (really they are charged as local calls from everywhere in Austria) they have not restricted these to one special area code (like 800 in US, 0800 in UK, etc.), so you can't easily tell from looking at the number whether it is toll-free or not: I have seen numbers advertised as toll-free with at least three different area codes. Call Forwarding is finally available, at a cost of AS 420/month -- that is $35. My entire phone bill (overseas calls excluded, but including unlimited local calling and all the extras like Call Forwarding and Call Waiting, etc.) was rarely as high as that while living in Dallas, TX. Wolf N. Paul, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Schloss Laxenburg, Schlossplatz 1, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe Phone: (Office) [43] (2236) 71521-465 (Home) [43] (1) 22-46-913 UUCP: uunet!mcvax!tuvie!iiasa!wnp W.U.ESL: 62864642 DOMAIN: iiasa!wnp@tuvie.at TLX/TWX: 910-380-8748 WNP UD