Text 31480, 122 rader
Skriven 2009-04-19 18:05:58 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 31410 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Phone numbers (was: Bank Security)
==========================================
18 Apr 09 00:24, Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Roy Witt:

 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.

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

The 800 numbers here were so popular, they added 866 and 877 toll free
numbers. Do you have to dial a country code before that 800 number or will
it ring on thru just by dialing the 800#?

 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.

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

That's what I was thinking. My power company for instance, doesn't have a
800 number that I know of. I have a local 3x4 number to report outages,
etc..

 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.

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

I think that's where the expanded 866 and 877 numbers come in here.

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

That may be true here as well. I haven't ever called one to find out how
they work.

 MvdV>>> 07* are national special services.

 MvdV> Correction: 08*.

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

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

If it's like a CNAME, isn't it kept in a database by the phone company or
whoever takes care of such records? Perhaps I don't understand, "you take
it with  you."

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

No doubt. We have something similar that is called 'call forwarding',
which can be used in the same way. I put this feature to work when I was
working road service. I had three cell phones; a Nextel which was used as
a walkie talkie and a cell phone, a T-Mobile Blackberry 8900 used for text
messaging and as a cell phone to call customers and my own AT&T cell
phone, which I used with a Blue Tooth. I call forwarded the Blackberry to
my personal cell and could then talk on the phone while navigating the
roads looking for my customer. I thought highly of that feature and
used it all the time.

 MvdV> I only knew one person with such a personal number.

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

I think so. To best serve the customer, the number should be toll free.

 MvdV>>>  00 is the international access code.

 RW>> Cool.

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

The home phone here doesn't have a 'long distance' provider, so I don't
need to dial anything but the 7 digit number. On the cell phone, it used
to be that you had to dial a 1 before you dialed an 'area code' (San Diego
was 858 and here it's 830), then the exchange number and finally the 4
digit phone number. You see them in the nodelist all the time and you've
actually called a few in your day, so I don't need to explain that.

                R\%/itt




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