"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

But do you remember "the pips" that would warn you when you'd been
talking for three minutes on a long-distance call

"...and the operator says '30 cents more for the next three minutes'..."
(Dr. Hook)

Ian

"Ian F." wrote in message
...
"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

But do you remember "the pips" that would warn you when you'd been
talking for three minutes on a long-distance call

"...and the operator says '30 cents more for the next three minutes'..."
(Dr. Hook)

Wasn't it '40 [not 30] cents more for the next [long pause] three [long
pause] minutes'? ;-) I never understood the significance of those pauses.

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...

Wasn't it '40 [not 30] cents more

I think you're right - lie I was allowing for the current state of the US
dollar against the pound /lie .

for the next [long pause] three [long pause] minutes'? ;-) I never
understood the significance of
those pauses.

I think it was just for scansion purposes "...next (beat) three (beat)
minutes (no beat) oh please, Mrs. Avery..."

Ian

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 23:15:50 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:
I think the intention is to have 020 [0-9]xxx xxxx, giving quite a lot
of extra numbers. While I doubt there'd be a mass renumbering of
existing districts, I suspect some districts may well end up with two
prefixes to give more capacity.

We could have [2-9]xxx xxxx; to get the others we would have to
require people to dial the whole number for all calls (as you would
from a mobile), effectively removing the idea of an area code all
together, as a number of continental European countries have done. I
don't think many have yet allocated any numbers that wouldn't have
been "right" before though, new numbers in Paris are still 01...,
Madrid still 91...

Perhaps Ofcom could do some advertising that actually works this time,
when London starts to get 3xxx xxxx numbers.

Richard.

In message on Sun, 02 Jan 2005
13:22:40 +0000 in uk.transport.london, (Richard)
tapped out on the keyboard:


Perhaps Ofcom could do some advertising that actually works this time,
when London starts to get 3xxx xxxx numbers.


Why ? The area code will not have changed, all that will be happening is that a
new range of local numbers will come into existence. You already have to dial
the last eight digits anyway.

--
John Youles Norwich England UK
j dot y.o.u.l.e.s at n.t.l.w.o.r.l.d dot c.o.m

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...

One thing I wish they'd sort out: if someone calls you and
they fail to put their receiver back, the line remains connected
for ages, even after you've put your phone back, blocking you
from making an outgoing call. When my grandma had a stroke
a few years ago, she phoned me for help but forgot to put her
phone back. I eventually had to go next door to phone for an
ambulance because the line wouldn't disconnect. Surely it's
not difficult to enginner things so *either* handset being replaced
drops the line - or else to shorten the delay to just a few seconds
if it's needed to avoid the line
dropping if you accidentally blip the handset switch.

When someone phones me, I answer on the nearest handset which is usually the
one in the hall), and then put that down and take the rest of the call on
another handset (usually in a room where I can sit down, keep warm and not
keep everyone in the house awake). So I hope they don't change that. Maybe
you should stay connected until you successfully dial and connect to another
number.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...

One thing I wish they'd sort out: if someone calls you and
they fail to put their receiver back, the line remains connected
for ages, even after you've put your phone back, blocking you
from making an outgoing call. When my grandma had a stroke
a few years ago, she phoned me for help but forgot to put her
phone back. I eventually had to go next door to phone for an
ambulance because the line wouldn't disconnect. Surely it's
not difficult to enginner things so *either* handset being replaced
drops the line - or else to shorten the delay to just a few seconds
if it's needed to avoid the line
dropping if you accidentally blip the handset switch.

When someone phones me, I answer on the nearest handset which is usually
the
one in the hall), and then put that down and take the rest of the call on
another handset (usually in a room where I can sit down, keep warm and not
keep everyone in the house awake). So I hope they don't change that. Maybe
you should stay connected until you successfully dial and connect to
another
number.

I always leave the first phone off-hook until I've lifted the second
receiver.

I'd be quite happy if the phone remained connected, providing that there was
some action (eg pressing a dial button) that reliably forced the line to
drop.

I've heard that the failure of line-drop was a way that burglars prevented a
house's occupants from dialling 999 - they'd ring a number and then leave
their phone off-hook to keep the line open while they burgled the house.
Less reliable nowadays since many people have mobiles which could be used as
a fall-back in this case.

In article , Richard J.
writes
It may have something to do with the fact that people have no idea what
ITU or E.123 are. Please provide a reference to these alleged
standards.

That could be so. Have you heard of a body called the United Nations?
Well the International Telecommunications Agency, ITU, is one of its
technical agencies, with headquarters in Geneva. Its website can be
found at http://www.itu.int

Unfortunately you have to pay (CHF 20 I seem to remember) to get a copy
of any of its main documents - but you can at least see a list of them
free by digging down in the web-site. There used to be an unofficial (I
guess illegal) copy of E.123 on the web, but it seems to have vanished -
maybe a more careful search would still find one. No doubt a good many
technical libraries keep copies of all ITU documents, and may even allow
you to photocopy E.123.

Not true. Since there was at that time an 0181 222 exchange as well as
an 0171 222 exchange, the 222 xxxx format would not have been unique.

I think you mis-understand - such numbers were unique within their own
zone. During the transitional period, as I already pointed out, London
continued to have the same 7-digit dialling as it had been using since
the 1930s. It was not until the second change that the local numbers
changed from being 7-digit to 8-digit, and then they became unique
across the whole city, not just in the single zone.

I doubt it. Do you have any evidence of official approval of "0207 xxx
yyyy" formats?

Of course not: officially the double transition did not exist, which has
led directly to the current confusion. This form was only valid during
the period between the first change, which introduced the area codes
starting 020 and the second one which changed from 7-digit to 8-digit
local numbers. But the rules of ITU E.123 are clear that the space
should always be shown between the area code and the local number.
During the transitional period of some six months that was after the
0207 or 0208.


--
Clive Page

Clive Page wrote:
In article , Richard
J. writes
It may have something to do with the fact that people have no idea
what ITU or E.123 are. Please provide a reference to these alleged
standards.

That could be so. Have you heard of a body called the United
Nations? Well the International Telecommunications Agency, ITU, is
one of its technical agencies, with headquarters in Geneva. Its
website can be found at http://www.itu.int

Unfortunately you have to pay (CHF 20 I seem to remember) to get a
copy of any of its main documents

No wonder people don't follow their recommendations! But this might
help:
https://ecs.itu.ch/cgi-bin/register-for-freedownload2

[..]
Not true. Since there was at that time an 0181 222 exchange as
well as an 0171 222 exchange, the 222 xxxx format would not have
been unique.

I think you mis-understand - such numbers were unique within their
own zone.

Precisely. That's why your original statement (which you conveniently
snipped) that you could call London Transport enquiries *from a
telephone in London* by dialling "222 1234" was not true if the
telephone was in the 0181 part of London.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

In article ,
Martin Underwood writes
I'm usually fairly clued-up about technical changes like this, but I hadn't
appreciated that there was an interim time when 0208 xxx yyyy and xxx yyyy
were valid:

There wasn't.

There was a long period when both the old form (0181 xxx yyyy) and the
new form (020 8xxx yyyy) were both handled by exchanges. The same was
true for all the other renumberings (e.g. 01222 xxxxxx = 029 20xxxxxx).

London, however, had a "flash cut" when local dialling changed from 7
digits (hence code 01[78]1) to 8 digits (hence code 020).

What a shame the Oftel made such a dog's breakfast of the changes in
London and didn't have the foresight to go straight from 01 xxx yyyy to 020
7xxx yyyy in one go :-(

They were advised better, but ignored it.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
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