Bill Hayles wrote:

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:07:52 -0000, "A H" wrote:

All day long the lazy journalists of the UK media have been giving out the
emergency telephone number for the SE Asia earthquake and subsequent tidal
waves in the format:

'0207 008 0000'

Soon we can expect to see/hear '0203 xxx xxxx'

Is this the only country in the world that can't cope with simple number
changes?

Not only is it not, it's not even the only country where they needlessly
add digits that make the numbers harder to remember.

At the risk of going even further off topic, the answer is "no".
It's the same in Spain.

My phone number was originally Benitachell xx xx. Then it was
changed to 649 xx xx. Finally, it was given the "All Spain" number
of 96 649 xx xx. This makes sense - 96 means Alicante Province, 649
is my local exchange and xx xx my personal number. All Spain has
(or had) a nicely logical sequence - province, exchange, 4 figure
number.

Now we're officially being told to quote our numbers as three groups
of three - 966 49x xxx so that more numbers can be allocated.

Nobody is. Telefonica won't win.

Good - they deserve to lose! I only hope they are humiliated in defeat!

Phone numbers are more easily remembered in blocks of seven digits
(usually written as xxx xxxx because that's easier to read). But far too
many phone companies are forgetting this and adding extra digits, with
the stupid objective of keeping all the phone numbers the same length -
even the ones that are only used for modems to dial out on!

Bill, whose old UK number will forever be FOOts Cray xxxx, or maybe
0208 300 xxxx but never 020 8300 xxxx

How about 020 8 300 xxxx? IIRC that's how they're now listed in the
phone book.