@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK,@cs.nss.ucl.AC.UK:pkh@computer-science.nottingham.ac.uk (pkh) (08/03/88)
------ Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 15:31:00 BST Sender: pkh@Cs Request for submission in the Telecom Digest. Following up Dik Winter's message in Telcom Digest V8 #114. There is also an oddity in the making of phone calls between the Republic of Ireland and the UK. In Ireland the area codes are of the form 0xx or 0xxx but the codes starting 03 all dial direct through to the UK. In the three figure codes the codes give direct access to the major cities in the UK, e.g. London # 01-xxx-yyyy is 031-xxx-yyyy and Manchester # 061-xxx-yyyy is 036-xxx-yyyy from Ireland, etc., but the other cities are accessed by putting 03 in front of the whole UK number, e.g. Nottingham # 0602-yyyyyy is 03-0602-yyyyyy. All these numbers can seemingly still by dialled using the international exchange prefix (16) plus the international number (e.g. 16 44 602 yyyyyy). >From the UK, before Irelands automatic exchange's were in place (this was only about 4 or 5 years ago, excluding the major Irish cities) there was a kind of reciprocal arrangement from the UK to Ireland for the major Irish Cities only. This meant that Dublin # 01-yyyyyy could be dialled from the UK using 0001-yyyyyy, Cork # 021-yyyyyy could be dialled using 0002-yyyyyy, etc. Now that Ireland is fully automatic (give or take 1 or 2 towns) and it has the country code 353 the UK has withdrawn all the above prefixes, except for the 0001 one, and people must dial via the international exchange. Ireland has not withdrawn its 03x and 03xxx numbers though. The reason the special UK <-> Ireland numbers existed (and some still exist) seems to be because of the historical link between the two countries - Britain ruled Ireland until 1932 - and the amount of Irish people living in Britain. To make things even more complicated, people in the Irish republic can dial Belfast (in Northern Ireland, part of the UK) numbers direct using the code 084, so the UK number 0232-yyyyyy (Belfast) can be accessed directly from Ireland using 084-yyyyyy. +--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | pkh%cs.nott.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk | Kevin Hopkins, | | or ..!mcvax!ukc!nott-cs!pkh | Department of Computer Science, | | or in the UK: pkh@uk.ac.nott.cs | University of Nottingham, Nottingham,| | CHAT-LINE: +44 602 484848 x 3815 | ENGLAND, NG7 2RD | +--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+