Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!shadooby!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Why not 00 as the international prefix in the US?
Message-ID: <2279@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 89 17:45:26 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Reply-To: goudreau@larrybud.dg.com (Bob Goudreau)
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC
Lines: 58
Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 583, message 3 of 7


In article <1904@accuvax.nwu.edu> ge@sci.kun.nl (Ge' Weijers) writes:

>>As someone has already pointed out, there are a lot more people and
>>phones here in the NANP (US, Canada, much of the Caribbean) using 011
>>as the prefix than there are in Europe using 00 as the prefix.  If
>>such a change is really needed (and I don't agree that it is), it
>>sounds like *you* should change to conform to the majority, not us.
>>(And no, I'm not advocating such a change, I'm merely pointing out the
>>absurdity of the rationale.)

>There are a lot of places using 00. A short list:
[omitted]

>To make my point: this makes for a lot of telephones. So why make all
>those people convert to 010.

If you had even bothered to read my message, you would have noticed a
few of *my* points:

1)  I'm *not* advocating that "00" countries change to "011".  I was
    merely pointing out that telephony does not begin and end in
    Europe.  (In fact, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander
    Graham Bell, was a *Canadian* immigrant to the *US*, so how's that
    for NANP credentials!)

2)  300 million people in the (mostly prosperous) NANP makes for a
    *lot* of telephones.  How many phones are in use in the "00"
    countries you cited?  Remember, except for the Western European
    ones, most of those on the list are third world countries and
    usually have comparatively very few phones.

3)  For the second time, it's "011", not "010", that's used as the
    usual international access code in the NANP.  The United Kingdom
    uses "010" -- add another 50-60 million people to your non-00
    hit list.

>The Dutch system uses 00x for special
>services like operator assistance, the time, the weather and the
>likes. They are moving these services to 06xxxxxx numbers though.
>Maybe we are converting from 09 to 00 for international access. Does
>anyone know?  (maybe someone from DNL cares to comment?)  In the
>meantime use a good agenda.

I'm not sure what is meant by the last sentence; please elaborate.

>6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands              tel. +3180612483 (UTC-2)

Does the Dutch PTT also advocate running all of a number's digits
together without using any intervening whitespace or punctuation to
make it easier for people to read?  This practice is not exactly what
I'd call good human-factors engineering.


Bob Goudreau				+1 919 248 6231
Data General Corporation		...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!goudreau
62 Alexander Drive			goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com
Research Triangle Park, NC  27709, USA