On Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 19, 11:32 am, John B wrote:

On Jul 19, 10:55 am, Mizter T wrote:

I think there's a number of other examples where an official or quasi-
official body of one sort or another defines London in different ways.

Examples (from the present day)?

Perhaps I've overstretched myself here... hmm! OK...

Snip a huge list of official or quasi-official bodies which are not making
*any* attempt *at all* to define London. It's a list of bodies which have
defined a region for their own purposes, and named it after London,
because London is the most obvious thing in it.

Seriously, do you think if you went to talk to the chief dredger at
British Waterways and asked him if his mum, who lives in Bishops
Stortford, lives in London, he'd say yes?

tom

--
Next issue - Nigel and the slavegirls ... or, why capitalism can never
work!

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

Arthur Figgis wrote:

* Humberside was split into North Humberside and South Humberside.

Not that many locals would use the word in their addresses,
especially after it was put out of its misery in 1996.

I believe "Avon" has faded even faster, though Bristol addresses
didn't need it anyway as it's a large post town.

Does anyone use "CUBA"?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

snip
In uk.transport.london message ebf97407-1b18-47b0-8820-1c4ef6dc7169@c1g
2000yqi.googlegroups.com, Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:37:24, John B
posted:

[as a side note, I utterly hate American-designed websites which
insist on you putting a county in the address field... especially the
ones that force you to pick from a list a county that doesn't
exist...]

snip

Why do you think it is American since county is not a part of United
States (or Canadian) addresses?

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:26:30 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 23:10:09 on
Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Charles Ellson remarked:

There *is* an underlying technical issue, in that out-of-area codes
don't scale, because they involve running wires from one exchange to
the other.

Surely it's all done with software now? In any case, the exchanges are
now connected by high bandwidth glass, not copper wire.

The software switches calls within the exchange, but they have to get
there first.

I'm not sure if it does any more. ISTR the exchange "owning" the
number now rejects the call and instructs the originating exchange
where to send it (all done in milliseconds) BICBW.

That's what they do for number portability. Perhaps it's also used for
out-of-area numbers, but I'm not aware of it.

A trawl of the OFCOM website suggests they only recognise "number
portability" in terms of mobile and 070x numbers. AFAICT their
explanation seems much the same as how the System X version was
explained to me for "permanent diversion" which took over on lines
previously hard-wired to a remote location.

The older version
on some exchanges required use of a directory number at the exchange
actually serving the subscriber to which calls were silently diverted
by the exchange which "owned" the number; IIRC that became unneccesary
once everything was replaced by System X or newer.

Call diversion tends to be charged by use, whereas an out of area number
would be a flat rate.

It would not be the first time that the same service was sold at
different rates with different names.

The originating exchange can only send to the receiving
exchange specified by the code (there won't be an "exception routing
table" for the out-of-area numbers). And that exchange then has to
deliver the call to a distant POTs line.

ITYF that like 0345, 0845 etc. it can deliver to a "numberless"
circuit.

The circuit still has to deliver to the premises via POTs. Geographic
numbers are done by ISDN, and/or the receiving party collecting the
calls from the exchange.

On 19 Jul 2009 22:37:41 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

John B wrote in news:7e4d44a7-3974-43c8-883a-
:

doesn't define government or geographical boundaries.

The two are not identical.

They can be.

(perhaps if you had left a bit more in....)

On 19 Jul 2009 23:10:17 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in
:

James Farrar wrote:

There is a huge variation around the country in the local authorities'
requirements for minicabs. I have a friend who use to run a minicab
business in Aylesbury, but now runs a similar business in Middlesex.

Time traveller, is he?

(for m.t.u-t'ers, Middlesex hasn't existed for 44 years)

It exists. The Local Government Act abolished only its council.

So where is the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex?

What's a Lord Lieutenant?

The monarch's representative in an English or Welsh county (as defined
in the Lieutenancies Act 1997), a Scottish city or an area in Scotland
designated by an Order in Council; in the City of London (including
the Temples) the function is held by a commission presided over by the
capital's Lord Mayor. When the bomb drops and destroys central
government, (s)he takes over; until then, (s)he attends ceremonies,
banquets and bar-mitzvahs with or on behalf of the monarch.

In message , at 21:23:05 on
Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Clark F Morris remarked:
[as a side note, I utterly hate American-designed websites which
insist on you putting a county in the address field... especially the
ones that force you to pick from a list a county that doesn't
exist...]

snip

Why do you think it is American since county is not a part of United
States (or Canadian) addresses?

You can usually tell if a supplier is "American" or is using a
fundamentally "American" ecommerce platform.

It's true that the County isn't part of the address in the USA, but what
happens is that Americans "buy in" the 'expertise' regarding the format
of addresses in other countries. So once you've told it you are in the
UK it switches the fields to what if fondly believes a UK address should
look like.
--
Roland Perry

In message . li, at
00:32:35 on Mon, 20 Jul 2009, Tom Anderson
remarked:

There *is* an underlying technical issue, in that out-of-area codes
don't scale, because they involve running wires from one exchange to
the other.

My understanding is that there are already wires running from one
exchange to the other. That's how the phone calls get around, d'you see.

As others have pointed out, those "wires" are often fibre with many
calls MUXed together. And from a system architecture point of view they
are also "trunks", and not "subscriber lines", therefore not suitable
for a classic "wired in" out of area number.

Out-of-area numbers don't involve special wires. It's done with
software, in the routing layer. But it's not done terribly well, so
there is still a cost - cheaper than special wires, but more than zero.

Diverting the calls would make best use of the infrastructure.

Clive Feather gave a good explanation of this some time ago on this
group. From what i remember, everyone agrees that there's a sensible
way to do number porting that wouldn't require exchange Q to be
involved in a call from A to B just because B's number was once at Q,
but that's not how things work at the moment, and getting it changed is
going to be a painful process.

As painful as the process for getting a new scheme for numbers ported
from one telco to another, I expect. That's been dragging on for years.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 02:04:47 on
Mon, 20 Jul 2009, Charles Ellson remarked:

ISTR the exchange "owning" the number now rejects the call and
instructs the originating exchange where to send it (all done in
milliseconds) BICBW.

That's what they do for number portability. Perhaps it's also used for
out-of-area numbers, but I'm not aware of it.

A trawl of the OFCOM website suggests they only recognise "number
portability" in terms of mobile and 070x numbers.

There's an EU Directive that says all numbers must be portable.
Landlines are at the moment.

AFAICT their explanation seems much the same as how the System X
version was explained to me for "permanent diversion" which took over
on lines previously hard-wired to a remote location.

Currently number portability is implemented by the "old" exchange having
a list of numbers which have been ported, and forwarding them to the
relevant new exchange. This has many disadvantages and will be replaced
by a new "Direct Routing" system which interrogates a central database
to discover which exchange (and which telco) the call should be
delivered to.

The older version on some exchanges required use of a directory
number at the exchange actually serving the subscriber to which calls
were silently diverted by the exchange which "owned" the number; IIRC
that became unneccesary once everything was replaced by System X or newer.

Calls are still diverted. Maybe System X means you don't have to use up
a "mapping" number at the destination exchange any more.

Call diversion tends to be charged by use, whereas an out of area number
would be a flat rate.

It would not be the first time that the same service was sold at
different rates with different names.

Call diversion, as an explicit service, costs a lot of resource (eg
CPU). I'm speculating that the telcos can deliver an "unlimited" number
of diverted calls cheaper than running a leased line (and hence
implement it that way, today). But the customer probably prefers a flat
rate, rather than paying per call.
--
Roland Perry

On Jul 19, 11:34*pm, James Farrar wrote:
There is a huge variation around the country in the local authorities'
requirements for minicabs. *I have a friend who use to run a minicab
business in Aylesbury, but now runs a similar business in Middlesex.

Time traveller, is he?

(for m.t.u-t'ers, Middlesex hasn't existed for 44 years)

It exists. The Local Government Act abolished only its council.

Or is Derby not in Derbyshire?

Wrong. Derby is still in the ceremonial council of Derbyshire, and the
ceremonial country of Greater Manchester still exists and contains all
the GM boroughs despite the county council's abolition - but the
ceremonial county of Middlesex was abolished at the same time as
Middlesex County Council.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org