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From: cgch!wtho@relay.eu.net (Tom Hofmann)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Bell "Numbering Plan Area" Scheme Was Shortsighted
Message-ID: <5137@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 13 Mar 90 18:50:38 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 170, Message 6 of 9

In article <4989@accuvax.nwu.edu> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us 
(John R. Levine) writes:

|>In that era, the only way to know when the entire number had been dialed was
|>to time and wait to see if any more digits followed.

|In Europe, this is still often the case.  For example, if you want to
|call the outfit that runs the Hannover trade fairs, their main number
|is 89-0, while their fax machine is 89-32626.

There is no waiting for more digits in the above case: no other number
starts with 89-0.  Whenever extensions can be dialled directly,
<prefix>-0 (resp. <prefix>-1) is the number of the local operator
while all other extensions have a fixed length number (e.g. 5 digits
for Hannover trade fairs) starting with digits 2--9 ("<prefix>-NXX..."
in US-like notation).

Waiting for more digits is not necessary in Germany.  In Austria,
however, you sometimes get the local operator by simply dialling no
extension.

|               A call from Paris to Amsterdam isn't going to go via
|Warsaw no matter how much spare bandwidth they have, the politics of
|accounting for everything make it impractical.

Is a call from Florida to Hawaii routed via Mexico?

|               Compare this to the European mess
|where the international code for each country is different, 

As in America! There are only two countries with the same area code:
USA and Canada (forget the Caribbean--that is like Liechtenstein, San
Marino etc. which have no country code either).

|countries have special case dialing rules, e.g. Britain from Ireland,

How about special case dialing from North America to Mexico ("area
code" 905 instead of +52 5)?

|and they do run out of numbers and stick new digits in various random
|places.

Usually, when running out of numbers, they add only one new digit at
a time. Still easier to remember then a new 3-digit area code.

|I note that some European countries such as France and Belgium have
|moved to fixed length numbers, 

I cannot remember that France ever had variable length numbers.

|It'll be interesting to see if they move to a unified routine scheme 
|and, if so, whether the adherents of variable length numbers (Germany and
|Italy, for reasons of theology and disorganization, respectively) have
|to change.

Rather the opposite. France and Belgium are the only countries in the
European Community (or even all of Europe?) with fixed length numbers.
(I am not sure --- has Belgium such a fixed number length?)


Tom Hofmann        wtho@cgch.UUCP