Text 31410, 83 rader
Skriven 2009-04-18 00:24:26 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 31408 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: Phone numbers (was: Bank Security)
==========================================
Hello Roy,

On Friday April 17 2009 11:57, you wrote to me:

 RW>>> Are there 800 numbers there?

 MvdV>> Almost. It is 0800. The 8 series was freed in 1995 so that it
 MvdV>> could be 800, but leaving out the leading zero was never
 MvdV>> implemented.

I should add that that 800 numbers (without the leading zero) DO exist here.
But contrary to the 0800 number that have a national scope, the 800 numbers are
Euro wide free numbers. They do not seem to be very popular, I do not know of
any specific example.

 MvdV>> 0800-9009 is the number of the gas company that I should call in
 MvdV>> case of a gas leak. In case of a power failure I call 0800-0100.

 RW> Hmmmm. That sounds like a great idea.

Many companies and institutions have free 0800 numbers, often to create a low
level entry point for potential customers.

 RW>>>  Is that how the 900 number works there?

 MvdV>> No, the 0900 numbers are numbers where you usualally (but not
 MvdV>> always) pay MORE than the price of a normal call. The owner can
 MvdV>> set the price and the extra goes into his account. They are
 MvdV>> paid services. One example is the chamber of commerce that will
 MvdV>> give you information about a company. For a fee.

 RW> Those numbers are used by scammers here. For $4.95/min you can have
 RW> phone sex.

The 0900 numbers are all used by bona fide institutions to provide paid
services. I already mentioned the chamber of commerce. Help desks usually have
a 0900 number too.

For "entertainment" the 0901 through 0903 series is used. The 090* numbers are
capped at EUR 1 a minute. By law owners of these numbers are required to
mention the cost when advertising the number. Also when calling the number,
there is a voice announcement to the effect of "this numbers cost xxx
cnents/minute". *Before* the counter starts running.

 MvdV>> 07* are national special services.

Correction: 08*.

 MvdV>> One of them is "personal numbers".

Personal numbers start with 087. They are like a CNAME in that the are an alias
of a regular number. With the difference that they can point to more than one
number and the owenr can change tha assigments at any time. When you move to
another area, you take it with you.

So you can have it assigned to your fixed line AND your cell phone. If the
fixed line is not answered, it rolls over to the cell phone. Etc. The down side
is that it costs extra, both for the owner and for the caller. Maybe the extra
cost is the reason they are not all that popular.

I only knew one person with such a personal number.

088 are company numbers. You can get a block of 100, 1000 or 10.000 numbers.
Does not matter if you have one location or many spread over the country in
different area codes, you can all serve them with one block of numbers. Sounds
good, but... there is extra cost for the caller, so that may be why they aren't
popular either...

 MvdV>>  00 is the international access code.

 RW> Cool.

Sounds logical. 0 is the generic number to "get out". 0 on my PABX gets me an
outside line. Another zero is the Trunc Access Code, it gets me out of my own
area code. And yet another 0 gets me out of the country. If we ever get
interplanetary telephony it would probably take another 0 to get off the
planet.


Cheers, Michiel

--- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20070503
 * Origin: http://www.vlist.org (2:280/5555)