Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: David Tamkin Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: When People Don't Dial 9 on PBXs Message-ID: <5329@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 18 Mar 90 21:58:34 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 73 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 183, Message 3 of 9 In <5259@accuvax.nwu.edu> Scott Fybush had written: > from Brandeis that means dialing 9-647-5522. Naturally any number of > people will forget and dial just 6475522, which the system reads as 6475. Roy Smith responded in TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 180: | It works the other way too (sounds like deja vu, doesn't it). | Some years ago, we had a data line put in at work (must have been | around 1980 or so). It was the only phone in the place where you | didn't have to dial 9 to get an outside line. People often forgot | that, and would dial 9-xxx-yyy-zzzz and get connected to 9xx-xyy-yzzz. | This was before the days of dial 1 for long distance, so the call | would go through to some random long distance number. That doesn't quite add up. The only way 9xx-xyy-yzzz would have reached another area code (if that's what Roy meant by saying "long distance" and showing ten digits) is if the first x was 1 or 0. Since no area code begins with 1 or 0, how could anyone who put an unnecessary 9 in front be trying to call 9-1xx-yyy-zzzz or 9-0xx-yyy-zzzz? Maybe if you had eight-digit intra-NPA toll dialing there, people were trying to dial 9-1-Nyy-zzzz and dialing to area code 91N but never completing a call because there were only six more digits; if N was a 7 (or a 2 before Georgia was split), the area code was invalid so the call still got nowhere for a different reason. Somehow, though, I find it hard to accept that any area has *ever* had eight-digit intra-NPA toll dialing and ten-digit inter-NPA dialing at any time in history. Now, let's say that the person was trying to place an operator-assisted call with 0+ and dialed an unnecessary 9. 9-0-NPA-NXX-XXXX, where the area code didn't begin with 8 or 9; if 903 had already been changed to 706, didn't begin with 3; or if 904 had not yet been split from 305, didn't begin with 4. But all area codes to date are N[0/1]X; the P would be 0 or 1 and thus could not begin a valid prefix in area code 90N. Again, no call completed. Next, maybe the person thought 1+ was needed before calls outside the area code. We still run into the same problem with the P digit as in the preceding paragraph; if N is 7 (or 2 before Georgia was split) we don't even get a valid area code. [I did just see a newspaper ad where a number in Itasca, Illinois, was printed as (708) 150-XXXX, but I honestly believe that the way it was printed won't work. It must have been a typo for Itasca prefix 250 or, if that part of Itasca has Bensenville service, for 350.] Now suppose the person dialing the extraneous 9 was trying to place a ten-digit call to another NPA. 9-N[0/1]X-yyy-zzzz. The N was never 0 or 1, so the call got placed to a local number, 9N[0/1]-Xyyy, assuming 9N[0/1] was a valid prefix reachable with seven digits. I can believe that, but the result would be an intra-NPA call. Finally, let's say the person was trying to reach local number NNX-zzzz. (Ten-digit dialing to other area codes is a good indicator that there were no N[0/1]X prefixes nearby.) Dialing an extra 9 sends the call to 9NN-Xzzz; again, it doesn't get out of the area code. I just don't see how adding a 9 in front of a valid dialing sequence can reach a valid inter-NPA number until we go to NXX area codes. Roy, I think you remembered it wrong. There must have been a lot of wrong numbers, some of which might have been inter-LATA, but none of which were inter-NPA. David Tamkin PO Box 813 Rosemont IL 60018-0813 708-518-6769 312-693-0591 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us BIX: dattier GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570