Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!apple!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!wugate!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: kiravuo@kampi.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Is Europe going to get 8 digit numbers? Message-ID: Date: 31 Jul 89 16:03:48 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center Lines: 33 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 267, message 2 of 9 In article dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) writes: >Are there more countries going to get 8 digit numbers in the near >future? Not Finland, at least, we still have varying lengths all over the country. My home number is 676 076 and work number 451 4328, even though they both are in the same (local) company. In some other places you can have numbers of only four digits. This is partly because we still have many private phone co-operatives. >PS. Isn't it about time that the world would agree on the international >access code, i.e. the code that you replace the +-sign with in your >international telephone number? In Sweden (and Denmark) we dial 009, >but many in many countries in Europe it is the more logical 00. Good idea. In Finland it is 990 to get out. Would you care to swap that 9 for one 0, would be easier for us both. :-) A trivia bit. In many companies with local switches you have to dial 0 to get out. In Finland at least. But on a pulse system the 0 is the longest number, so that a 1 would make more sense, to save time. The story goes that this comes from the Italy, where the inpatient Italians would start to hit the phone hook and accidentally get a 0, when they could not get an line out right away. -- Timo Kiravuo Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center kiravuo@hut.fi sorvi::kiravuo kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net work: 90-451 4328 home: 90-676 076