Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!newstop!sun-barr!apple!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!gryphon!vector!telecom-gateway From: munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.AU!dave@uunet.uu.net (Dave Horsfall) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Why Not 00 as the International Prefix in the US? Message-ID: Date: 22 Nov 89 03:32:33 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Dave Horsfall Organization: Alcatel STC Australia, North Sydney, AUSTRALIA Lines: 23 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 528, message 4 of 9 In article , rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) writes: | Oy! I found that surprising, since in Australia the digit to dial for | calls outside a Centrex or similar system is "0" instead of "9" in | U.S. Thus, a call to the U.S. from an Australian Centrex is | 0-0011-1-etc. To then have "000" as emergency seems it could have | high potential for misdials. "Emergency? No, I'm trying to reach | France!" Doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. The mis-dial would only occur if you were dialing from home, or from a direct line in an office. You would be alerted by the fact that there was no secondary dial-tone after the first "0". In many PABX's, you must wait for this (outside) dial tone - they don't buffer the digit string. Besides, ISD calls are usually only available to the elite few :-) By the way, "9" seems to be pretty universally used (in Australia) to get the switchboard operator on a PABX. Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz.AU dave%stcns3.stc.oz.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.AU!dave