On Mar 29, 1:29 pm, wrote:
On Mar 29, 12:12 am, Michael Hoffman wrote:

Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
Everybody who rings numbers locally in London can just dial the last 8
digits of the 'full' number, so it should be obvious that the dialling
code is 020 from that.

Somehow, I imagine there are many people in London who don't know that
they can do that.

The scary thing is that this was such a simple change, and there are
still 59% of the population who don't understand it. Just tax the
stupid people!


They do. Have you heard of the National Lottery?

On 29 Mar 2007 12:31:17 -0700, "MIG"
wrote:

On Mar 29, 1:29 pm, wrote:
On Mar 29, 12:12 am, Michael Hoffman wrote:

Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
Everybody who rings numbers locally in London can just dial the last 8
digits of the 'full' number, so it should be obvious that the dialling
code is 020 from that.

Somehow, I imagine there are many people in London who don't know that
they can do that.

The scary thing is that this was such a simple change, and there are
still 59% of the population who don't understand it. Just tax the
stupid people!


They do. Have you heard of the National Lottery?

That's not a tax on stupidity per se, more a tax on hope.

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article ,
am (Exchange) wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/2q87fa
Type: 020
London has two codes 0207 and 0208

You're going to get mighty confused when you try to dial an 020 3xxx xxxx
number then!

Or 020 0xxx xxxx, which I've seen several companies (including LU!) using.

Cheers,

Barry

In article ,
(Barry Salter) wrote:

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:
In article ,
am (Exchange) wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/2q87fa
Type: 020
London has two codes 0207 and 0208

You're going to get mighty confused when you try to dial an 020
3xxx xxxx number then!

Or 020 0xxx xxxx, which I've seen several companies (including LU!)
using.

Oh! I didn't know they were in use yet. I knew that 70xx and 80xx of the
impossible before the change options were in use but not those.

020 0xxx can't be dialled with 8 digits within London, though, so they
are reserved for limited purposes.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Incidentally, the other day I saw a newspaper aimed at Chinese people in
England. On the front page were the phone numbers for the various editorial
departments.... all of them had the area code 0207, except for the
complaints department, which had the code 0171. It reminded me of the
excellent advert about the Carlsberg complaints department.

In message , John Rowland
writes

Incidentally, the other day I saw a newspaper aimed at Chinese people in
England. On the front page were the phone numbers for the various editorial
departments.... all of them had the area code 0207, except for the
complaints department, which had the code 0171. It reminded me of the
excellent advert about the Carlsberg complaints department.

And I wonder if that might be the crux of all the confusion over the
past few years - sheer laziness?

Instead of sorting out published numbers properly as they should be,
organisations large and small have just cut'n'pasted 0207 over instances
of 0171 and 0208 over 0181, therefore perpetuating the myth, and which
has subsequently been used for other numbers.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

wrote in
:

They must have a lot of people working on that the travel information
line I always seem to get straight through. Apart from the day when
there was loads of snow


The only good thing lately is that you can hit "2" and it cuts out a couple
of the intros.

Or maybe they've done away with them altogether. I'm talking about the
message that you can text A to B from your mobile phone, and the licensed
cab etc etc. You used to have to listen to all that, even if you press
"1" or "2". Now, you either don't have to, or they've removed it.

In article , Paul Scott
writes
However, the BT system is not consistent nationally. Their web dialling
code finder tells you that 0207 and 0208 are not recognised codes, but they
did the same type of change in Portsmouth (023 92nn nnnn) and Southampton
(023 80nn nnnn), but 023 is not a recognised area code, 02392 and 02380 show
up as good. Local dialling definitely requires 8 digits, can anyone explain
that?

If you can give me the URL of the page in question, I will have Words
with the relevant person at BT.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

In article , Richard J.
writes
Are you saying that all numbers on the same exchange will start
with the same 4 first numbers?
I guess not, but what do you mean by '4-digit exchange code'?
To take the number in the title of this thread as an example, the
enquiries number for London Transport used to be ABBey 1234, one of up
to 9999 numbers on the ABBey exchange, which became the 222 exchange
when all-figure numbers were introduced. That exchange is now the 7222
exchange, and all numbers on that exchange have the format 020 7222 xxxx.

Um, I'm afraid not.

The connection between exchange and number was broken in London much
earlier than elsewhere. The 7222 bit is technically known as a "director
group" after the technology used at the time (though not any more).

Each first-tier exchange (known as a "concentrator") is allocated one or
more blocks of numbers. These blocks vary in size; most commonly they
are 10,000 or 1,000 numbers, though I know of cases where they are as
small as 100 numbers. Most concentrators handle several separate blocks.
It is normal for all the numbers handled by a concentrator to be in a
single dialling code, but I won't claim that's universal.

020 7222 is managed by Westminster Unit G (interestingly, the internal
BT code for this contains "ABB" rather than "WES"). This manages the
following number blocks:

02032681
02072020
0207222
0207227
02076541
02076542
02076543
02076545
020765476
02076549
02077830
02077831
02077832
02077835
02077836
02077837
02077838
02079601
02079606
02079607

Concentrators are controlled by the second-tier, known as "DLEs"
(Digital Local Exchanges); there are an average of 10 concentrators per
DLE. Westminster G is controlled by Southbank Unit E.

It is common for a DLE to span several dialling codes *and at the same
time* for a dialling code to be split among several DLEs. For example,
the five or six DLEs in Cambridge handle all of 01223, most of 01954,
and good chunks of 01353, 01440, 01736, and others.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...
In article , Paul Scott
writes
However, the BT system is not consistent nationally. Their web dialling
code finder tells you that 0207 and 0208 are not recognised codes, but
they
did the same type of change in Portsmouth (023 92nn nnnn) and Southampton
(023 80nn nnnn), but 023 is not a recognised area code, 02392 and 02380
show
up as good. Local dialling definitely requires 8 digits, can anyone
explain
that?

If you can give me the URL of the page in question, I will have Words with
the relevant person at BT.

http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publi...guide.publisha

Best of luck Clive...

Paul