Telephone numbers 101

[cjammer]

I have noticed that Many people in this forum are not from the USA.

So that leads me to this...

I know enough about telephone systems and numbering outside the U.S. to fit on the end of a Hair. I can imagine there are other out there that are in the same boat.

Here is my two cents worth about the phone numbers here. I hope someone will fill me in on other places. I think it will help me when I am reading over some of the notes to understand what numbers actually go where.

When I dial a number here to call someone all I have to do is dial the exchange and the number assigned to them. If I dial a number outside of my area I have to dial the country code and the area code also. With cell phones it is not necessary to dial the country code within the US.

Here is what I am say with the numbers.

A number that contains all the elements would be 1-222-333-4444.
Where '1' is the country code (you may have to correct me on this one)
222 is the Area code. Each state has its own assigned codes.
333 is the Exchange number assigned to the telco that is providing you service.
4444 would represent the individual home or business.

So for me to call my neighbor I would only need to dial 333-4444, but for me to call up to the big city I will need to dial the entire string, 1-222-333-4444.

That's it in a nutshell. Anyone else care to fill in more of the blanks?

 

[DaKhalli]

what are you trying to say with this post?

how numbes are build up? or you having problems?

 

[Anonymous]

I think the post is to get a common understanding on how the number plans are in other countries etc. So we all talk about the same thing.

In AU you have:

A number that contains all the elements would be 1-(2)2-3333-4444.
Where '1' is the country code (you may have to correct me on this one) Ok. here is a correction, most of the time it is double digits, what this is used for is to connect you to the foreign exchange/gateway same as your local exchange. You can see it as the dial out code, country wide.

(2)2 is the Area code. Each state has its own assigned codes.
Same principle just less digits here in AU. We got a 2 digit number for each state.

3333 is the Exchange number assigned to the telco that is providing you service.
Same principle, only the exchanges have 4 digit codes here.

4444 would represent the individual home or business.
That is correct.

The way we start dialing here in AU is actually use the full 10 digit number to connect, especially when you use an VSP, not all VSP's can determine you place of origin and for that reason need the state code. The number 33334444 is not unique for country it only unique for state hence.

Mobiles work different here than in the US, appart from the different network we only have INTERNATIONAL roaming. The US you can have roaming from state to state or even from city to city. Depending on the providers in that area. We do not have that here in AU. All providers cover the whole country (being an island sort of helps with that ).

 

[cjammer]

Is VSP "Voice Service Provider"?

You make a good point about the 33334444 numbers uniqueness I failed to mention that here.

For us the 333-4444 numbers may not be unique to the state, but to the Area Code.

Another point for clarification is that the exchange code may be referred to as a community code here.

I also look up the list of international country codes and '1' is the only thing listed for the US. I noticed that other countries have several listed in them to include '1' after a little more research on this, I found that from the US to call internationally I would need to dial a string like this to call Australia.

011-22-33-4444-5555

011 is the international access code
22 is the country code
33 is a city code
4444-5555 is the local number.

or 011-61-02-4444-5555

Does this make sense?

Hopefully we are all on the same "dialing plan" now...LOL