Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!gryphon!vector!telecom-gateway From: ilya@polya.stanford.edu (Ilya Goldberg) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Canada - U.S. Communications Message-ID: Date: 29 Aug 89 11:20:48 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Ilya Goldberg Organization: Stanford University Lines: 35 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 330, message 8 of 9 X-GATEWAY-WARNING: original 'Date' value is too old for posting X-Original-Date: 13 Aug 89 00:59:11 GMT In article telecom-gateway@vector. UUCP writes: >In article , wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us >(Wolf Paul) writes: > ... >> (a) from certain nationalistic perspectives it rankles that Canada >> is the only major country which does not have its own country code >No, Canada is not the only major country which does not have its own >country code! The USA does not have its own country-code, either, as it must share with Canada! >But Paul's other point is well taken. If two country codes were >used for these two telephone-intensive countries, it would provide >some near-term relief from the rapidly-approaching exhaustion of >available area codes. Actually, no, unless you want to go to 12-digit international numbering. The reason is that there is only one single digit code (namely '1') and this would go to the US. But then no other country can get a two-digit code which starts with a '1' (there is a rule that says country codes must be distinct in this way). Therefore, if Canada and US had country codes, they would have to be two-digit codes, both starting with a '1'. Well, with 11-digit international numbers, that would leave only 9 digits for the national number, which is not enough. The long term plan has always been to go to NXX style area codes. The biggest problem with that is parsing a phone number to distinguish a 7-digit local call from a 10-digit long-distance call. Since many places already have N0/1X exchanges and 1+ dialing, implementing NXX area codes should not be as big a problem now. -Ilya ilya@polya.stanford.edu