On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

It's up to your calltime provider to advise you how much calls will
cost. (Who else can say?) As a random example AT&T quote separate
landline and wireless rates to various countries so it should be
readily apparent to anyone who bothers to check international calling
rates before dialling:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/in.../in-the-us.jsp

--
Graham Nye
news(a)thenyes.org.uk

Graham Nye wrote:
On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

+ is the international instruction to dial the routing digits to make
an international call. I believe we all recognize it.

I've never seen a comprehensive list of caller pays or other surcharged
numbers in other countries, and you probably don't know what they are
for my country. I have seen incomplete lists and I've read that there
are plenty of exceptions.

It's up to your calltime provider to advise you how much calls will
cost. (Who else can say?)

My service won't know in advance under all circumstances.

As a random example AT&T quote separate landline and wireless rates to
various countries so it should be readily apparent to anyone who bothers
to check international calling rates before dialling:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/in.../in-the-us.jsp

I've seen such lists before. This list doesn't have the surcharge, so
it's not all that helpful. It doesn't even tell you which are premium and
which are caller pays mobile.

I do note that several countries in NANP have surcharged numbers, I
assume mainly for caller pays mobile. That should be a surprise to anyone.

On 31-Mar-12 10:48, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Graham Nye wrote:
On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

+ is the international instruction to dial the routing digits to make
an international call. I believe we all recognize it.

You'd be surprised. Many Americans probably don't know what our int'l
dialing prefix is since they've never used it--and it's not necessary
for int'l calls to other countries in the NANP.

(I've run into numerous people that genuinely think "011" is part of the
phone number for overseas calls--perhaps a strange area code. And, yes,
sometimes they try to dial "1" first.)

Also, on some mobile phones, the int'l prefix is actually "01", which
many people may not distinguish from the "1" that sometimes precedes
NANP calls (including Caller ID, on some carriers).

Worse, some carriers do not present _any_ sort of prefix for Caller ID,
so int'l calls come in _looking like_ domestic calls. For instance, I
remember a call from a former employer's Brussels office, which had 10
digits and was displayed on my phone's screen as (322) xxx-xxxx. I
happen to know area code 322 was reserved* and realized it must have
been from somewhere in Europe, but most Americans wouldn't--and they
wouldn't know how to return that call if they missed it.

(* All "Easily Remembered Codes", which means those with identical
trailing digits, are reserved for special purposes.)

It's up to your calltime provider to advise you how much calls will
cost. (Who else can say?)

My service won't know in advance under all circumstances.

Can you provide an example? I can't think of one.

I do note that several countries in NANP have surcharged numbers, I
assume mainly for caller pays mobile. That should be a surprise to
anyone.

I'm not aware of any surcharged numbers other than the well-known
(within the NANP, at least) 900 and 976 numbers. There are several
countries in the NANP that charge ridiculous int'l toll rates for
numbers, hoping that clueless Americans can be enticed into dialing
them, but that's it. These were formerly all grouped into area code
809, but now they're spread among a dozen or so area codes, so it's more
difficult to avoid them without checking the number first.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 31-Mar-12 10:48, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Graham Nye wrote:
On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

+ is the international instruction to dial the routing digits to make
an international call. I believe we all recognize it.

You'd be surprised. Many Americans probably don't know what our int'l
dialing prefix is since they've never used it--and it's not necessary
for int'l calls to other countries in the NANP.

I have a GSM handset. Every call is dialed with country code, although
I can dial 10 digits domestically. I have to dial a literal + for
international dialing outside NANP.

Also, on some mobile phones, the int'l prefix is actually "01", which
many people may not distinguish from the "1" that sometimes precedes
NANP calls (including Caller ID, on some carriers).

I wonder why that is, as that would get you operator assistance on a
land line call.

It's up to your calltime provider to advise you how much calls will
cost. (Who else can say?)

My service won't know in advance under all circumstances.

Can you provide an example? I can't think of one.

I haven't had a little surprise on my bill in a while. Next time it happens,
I'll let you know.

I do note that several countries in NANP have surcharged numbers, I
assume mainly for caller pays mobile. That should be a surprise to
anyone.

I'm not aware of any surcharged numbers other than the well-known
(within the NANP, at least) 900 and 976 numbers.

Look at the list our friend pointed out. That's where I noticed it.

There are several countries in the NANP that charge ridiculous int'l
toll rates for numbers, hoping that clueless Americans can be enticed
into dialing them, but that's it.

You're talking about that fraud. Calls didn't even terminate there. The
telecom was splitting the long distance settlement fees with those
call centers.

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.

On 31/03/2012 19:10, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen wrote:
On 31-Mar-12 10:48, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Graham wrote:
On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

+ is the international instruction to dial the routing digits to make
an international call. I believe we all recognize it.

You'd be surprised. Many Americans probably don't know what our int'l
dialing prefix is since they've never used it--and it's not necessary
for int'l calls to other countries in the NANP.

I have a GSM handset. Every call is dialed with country code, although
I can dial 10 digits domestically. I have to dial a literal + for
international dialing outside NANP.

Also, on some mobile phones, the int'l prefix is actually "01", which
many people may not distinguish from the "1" that sometimes precedes
NANP calls (including Caller ID, on some carriers).

I wonder why that is, as that would get you operator assistance on a
land line call.

It's up to your calltime provider to advise you how much calls will
cost. (Who else can say?)

My service won't know in advance under all circumstances.

Can you provide an example? I can't think of one.

I haven't had a little surprise on my bill in a while. Next time it happens,
I'll let you know.

I do note that several countries in NANP have surcharged numbers, I
assume mainly for caller pays mobile. That should be a surprise to
anyone.

I'm not aware of any surcharged numbers other than the well-known
(within the NANP, at least) 900 and 976 numbers.

Look at the list our friend pointed out. That's where I noticed it.

There are several countries in the NANP that charge ridiculous int'l
toll rates for numbers, hoping that clueless Americans can be enticed
into dialing them, but that's it.

You're talking about that fraud. Calls didn't even terminate there. The
telecom was splitting the long distance settlement fees with those
call centers.

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.

The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.

I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.

Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)

wrote:
On 31/03/2012 19:10, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.

The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.

Ah, yes. Looking at Planning Letter 434 http://nanpa.com/pdf/PL_434.pdf ,
+1 721 has been in effect since that date. Use of +599 ends September 30,
2012. However, +599 remains in effect for Curacao, Sint Eustatius, Saba,
and Bonaire. Is this about Sint Maarten promoting closer association with
the United States, or does it reflect long, lingering hard feelings about
the decades-long dissolution of Netherlands Antilles? Both Sint Maarten
and Curacao are now independent of the Netherlands, but the other three
aren't. Those four continue to share the old Netherlands Antilles +599
numbering plan.

I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.

Hah! You had no idea that those Pacific Oceana islands were in North America,
did you (or Hawaii for that matter)?

American Samoa 10/2/2004
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam 7/1/1997

I don't think I'm forgetting any other expansion.

AT&T created the numbering plan in 1947, and it took effect in 1951. It's
said that they intended to number all the world's countries within it, but
I don't see how there could have possibly been sufficient numbering space.

If anyone cares, NANP members are United States, Canada, Bermuda, parts
of the Caribbean, and parts of Pacific Oceana.

Caribbean portions include Bahamas, Barbados, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda,
British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Grenada at the
very edge of the Caribbean Sea, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat,
Sint Maarten as we've discussed, St. Lucia, Puerto Rico, Dominica,
St. Vincent and Grenadines, Dominican Republic (one of the few countries
in NANP that were neither British nor US), Trinidad and Tobago, St. Kitts
and Nevis, and Jamaica. Pacific Oceana includes CNMI, Guam, and American
Samoa.

Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)

Ah. France's last stand in North America. Haven't heard anything about it.

On Apr 1, 2:41*pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:

AT&T created the numbering plan in 1947, and it took effect in 1951. It's
said that they intended to number all the world's countries within it, but
I don't see how there could have possibly been sufficient numbering space..

Given the many challenges in converting the US system to universal 10
digit addressing and converting the remaining manual exchanges to
dial, I don't think they were too concerned with direct dial
international calling at that time. They still had to lay cables to
many places to replace radio for overseas calls.

Some countries couldn't be reached, by any method, until the 1970s.

On Apr 1, 6:53*am, "
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code. Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to
make it part of NANP.

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter. It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

wrote:

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code. Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to
make it part of NANP.

Northwest Mexico and Mexico City were dialable without country code
with two special three digit area code-like trunk codes within the NANP.
That ended when those three-digit numbers were assigned as area codes in
the early 1990's. The telephone system of northwest Mexico had US investors,
which explains that. I assume Mexico City was for convenience, probably
the vast majority of the calls anyway.

I don't know if AT&T ever reserved area codes to any other countries for
future expansion of NANP.

On 01-Apr-12 12:19, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:53 am, "
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code.

Two area codes: 905 for Mexico City and 706 for northwest Mexico.

That ended in 1991.

Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to make it part of NANP.

Apparently, they preferred having a country code (+52) of their own,
like the rest of Latin America (World Zone 5) rather than be a vassal
state of the imperialist gringos that run the NANP (World Zone 1).

And, if Mexico _had_ fully joined the NANP, would that imply the rest of
Central America should as well, as well as the Spanish-speaking
countries in the Caribbean? Why not South America too?

In practice, +1 is for English- and French-speaking countries, and +5 is
for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. There is significantly
less communication between the two groups as there is within each group,
for linguistic and other reasons, so it makes sense for them to be separate.

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter. It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

It's off the coast of Newfoundland; that's not really "embedded" within
Canada, and is further from the US than many European colonies in the
Caribbean.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking