It's possible to display telephone numbers as:

        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>

I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not. What about the
issues for novice users who will think the link should be clickable in
their default browser set up?

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            *  Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards:  <http://www.no2id.net/>
            *  Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
            *  Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/> ?

Andy Mabbett wrote:
> It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
> 
>         <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
> 
> I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not. What about the
> issues for novice users who will think the link should be clickable in
> their default browser set up?

I would personally wait until such times as everyone has a SIP url for
their telephony contact and then link to that.

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
uk> posted:
>
>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>
>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>

But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
is properly written.

-- 
 (c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK.  ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk   Turnpike v6.05   IE 6.
 Web  <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - w. FAQish topics, links, acronyms
 PAS EXE etc : <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/programs/> - see 00index.htm
 Dates - miscdate.htm moredate.htm js-dates.htm pas-time.htm critdate.htm etc.

Dr J R Stockton wrote:
> In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
> Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
> uk> posted:

>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
> 
> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
> is properly written.

Yes, and one shared by the majority of Londoners it seems.

However since the number format seems to change on a regular basis and
doesn't seem to have much reason for doing so I'm not surprised that
people can't keep up.

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

"Dr J R Stockton"  wrote in message 
news:wf69nMOr$q9GFwM9@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid...
> In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
> Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
> uk> posted:
>>
>>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>>
>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>
> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
> is properly written.

Why, what's wrong with it?

"Richard Watson"  wrote in message 
news:NLmdnabD1eH8JWXbnZ2dnUVZ8sylnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk...
> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>> In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
>> Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
>> uk> posted:
>
>>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>
>> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
>> is properly written this week.
>
> Yes, and one shared by the majority of Londoners it seems.
>
> However since the number format seems to change on a regular basis and
> doesn't seem to have much reason for doing so I'm not surprised that
> people can't keep up.

You're right - and what a load of nonsense it's become. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0207_and_0208

It certainly WAS true that 7 referered to central and 8 to outer London, and 
that even carried through into the 020 era (according to that rather snotty 
article, anyway - "Sigh... we changed all that yesterday - why can't you 
MORONS keep UP???") so that 0207 DID mean inner, and 0208 DID mean outer. 
Now, however, they've just screwed the whole system up and suddenly expect 
people to know that and format numbers accordingly.

Of course, the whole thing matters not one damn as you don't dial spaces 
anyway... and if BT weren't so slow, they'd have anticipated some sort of 
expansion back in 1958, or maybe 1979, or maybe even 1990. Why not trying 
staying two or even three steps ahead of the game, rather than just one?

p.s. I've corrected Stockton's post for him  ;o)

p.p.s. Dunno why this irrirates me so much - other than that I lived just 
outside the 0208 area for the first thirty years of my life and was 
constantly expected to keep up with their ludicrously constant changes (and 
if you don't like that 0208 you can stick it)

> Of course, the whole thing matters not one damn as you don't dial spaces 
> anyway...

If you live in London and you want to dial, say the BBC on  020 8576 9748, 
you drop the 020 (i.e. the area code) and dial the rest, i.e. 8576 9748

If the number is written  0208 576 9748, it's a pain to think "oh I can take 
the 8 off the area code, dial that, then dial the telephone number.", 
because dialling  576 9748 does not work.

Historically, there was a reason why you would only dial the number if it 
was "local" to you, i.e. drop the area code, and that was because it was 
cheaper.  As soon as you dialled the "0" your call would be routed onto the 
national network and you could be charged a national rate.

"Virginner"  wrote in message 
news:i25Ki.5257$X%4.4616@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...
>> Of course, the whole thing matters not one damn as you don't dial spaces 
>> anyway...
>
> If you live in London and you want to dial, say the BBC on  020 8576 9748, 
> you drop the 020 (i.e. the area code) and dial the rest, i.e. 8576 9748
>
> If the number is written  0208 576 9748, it's a pain to think "oh I can 
> take the 8 off the area code, dial that, then dial the telephone number.", 
> because dialling  576 9748 does not work.
>
> Historically, there was a reason why you would only dial the number if it 
> was "local" to you, i.e. drop the area code, and that was because it was 
> cheaper.  As soon as you dialled the "0" your call would be routed onto 
> the national network and you could be charged a national rate.

And yet, when the 0207 and 0208 numbers first appeared that's exactly how 
they presented them to us. The confusion came from BT themselves.

"Mike Roman"  writes:

> "Richard Watson"  wrote in message 
> news:NLmdnabD1eH8JWXbnZ2dnUVZ8sylnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk...
>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>> In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
>>> Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
>>> uk> posted:
>>
>>>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>>
>>> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
>>> is properly written this week.
>>
>> Yes, and one shared by the majority of Londoners it seems.
>>
>> However since the number format seems to change on a regular basis and
>> doesn't seem to have much reason for doing so I'm not surprised that
>> people can't keep up.
>
> You're right - and what a load of nonsense it's become. 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0207_and_0208
>
> It certainly WAS true that 7 referered to central and 8 to outer London, and 
> that even carried through into the 020 era (according to that rather snotty 
> article, anyway - "Sigh... we changed all that yesterday - why can't you 
> MORONS keep UP???") so that 0207 DID mean inner, and 0208 DID mean outer. 
> Now, however, they've just screwed the whole system up and suddenly expect 
> people to know that and format numbers accordingly.
>
> Of course, the whole thing matters not one damn as you don't dial spaces 
> anyway...

It does help (slightly) to know the least that one has to dial though.

> and if BT weren't so slow, they'd have anticipated some sort of 
> expansion back in 1958, or maybe 1979, or maybe even 1990. Why not trying 
> staying two or even three steps ahead of the game, rather than just
> one?

I think they did.  It is hard to change millions of phone numbers.
The route taken -- to introduce more digits into the numbers by adding
new area codes and then amalgamating them into one was, in my view,
just about the smoothest route possible.

> p.s. I've corrected Stockton's post for him  ;o)

By adding "this week"?  020 starting in 1998.  Nine years is a long
time to get to know how to dial your local phone numbers!

-- 
Ben.

"Ben Bacarisse"  wrote in message 
news:87tzpj0waw.fsf@bsb.me.uk...
> "Mike Roman"  writes:
>
<snip>
>
>> p.s. I've corrected Stockton's post for him  ;o)
>
> By adding "this week"?  020 starting in 1998.  Nine years is a long
> time to get to know how to dial your local phone numbers!
>

Some long time residents in the villages around here still sometimes 
give their phone numbers with the first two digits, that were formally 
the dialling code for the local BT 'sub' exchange, missing - and those 
exchanges stopped being anything more than junction boxes more that 25 
years ago!

In uk.net.web.authoring message <46f8d39b$0$3181$9a6e19ea@unlimited.news
hosting.com>, Tue, 25 Sep 2007 10:23:46, Mike Roman
 posted:
>"Richard Watson"  wrote in message
>news:NLmdnabD1eH8JWXbnZ2dnUVZ8sylnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk...
>> Dr J R Stockton wrote:
>>> In uk.net.web.authoring message ,
>>> Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07, Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org.
>>> uk> posted:
>>
>>>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>>
>>> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone number
>>> is properly written this week.
                        Forgery alert, qv inf.

>>
>> Yes, and one shared by the majority of Londoners it seems.
>>
>> However since the number format seems to change on a regular basis and
>> doesn't seem to have much reason for doing so I'm not surprised that
>> people can't keep up.
>
>You're right - and what a load of nonsense it's become.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0207_and_0208
>
>It certainly WAS true that 7 referered to central and 8 to outer London,

Agreed (YSCIB).

> and
>that even carried through into the 020 era

To make the change straightforward, central "0171 " numbers became "020
7" and outer "0181 " numbers became "020 8".  But it was clearly stated
that the geographical inner/outer distinction would not be retained, and
that other digits would be used in addition in the position of 7 & 8 - 3
has been introduced, AIUI.

>Now, however, they've just screwed the whole system up and suddenly expect
>people to know that and format numbers accordingly.

No; they explained it at the time.  There has been a simple rule for
formatting phone numbers since pre-STD days at least - do it as the
phone book says.


>Of course, the whole thing matters not one damn as you don't dial spaces
>anyway...

It does matter, as the first space indicates which part suffices
locally.

> and if BT weren't so slow, they'd have anticipated some sort of
>expansion back in 1958, or maybe 1979, or maybe even 1990. Why not trying
>staying two or even three steps ahead of the game, rather than just one?


BT's failure in this respect lies only in not making their explanations
sufficiently idiot-proof.  Some changes have had to be done in multiple
steps, in order to avoid problems which a one-step change would have
caused.

>p.s. I've corrected Stockton's post for him  ;o)

Forgery of quotations is despicable, even when confessed below.

-- 
 (c) John Stockton, Surrey, UK.  ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk   Turnpike v6.05   MIME.
 Web  <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQish topics, acronyms, & links.
 For news:borland.*, use their server newsgroups.borland.com ; but first read
 Guidelines <URL:http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html> ff. with care.

"Dr J R Stockton"  wrote in message 
news:3mFsZTMbfT+GFwGr@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid...
>>p.s. I've corrected Stockton's post for him  ;o)
>
> Forgery of quotations is despicable, even when confessed below.

hehe...

Dr J R Stockton wrote:

> To make the change straightforward, central "0171 " numbers became "020
> 7" and outer "0181 " numbers became "020 8".  But it was clearly stated
> that the geographical inner/outer distinction would not be retained, and
> that other digits would be used in addition in the position of 7 & 8 - 3
> has been introduced, AIUI.
> 

Straightforward is not a word to adequately describe this transition. We
need to ask why 0171 and 0181 were introduced at all.

Given that prior to this 01 was London, and after the switch every
single *other* area code started with 01, I find it hard to see why this
was such a smooth transition, or created any more numbers than could
have easily been created by other means.

It would have made far more sense to keep 01 for London and add in an
extra digit after it, which would allow for 100 million numbers, and
then divide the rest of us into segments, so 02 for south east, 03 south
west etc appending the current dialing code, so that then extra area
codes could be added as required.

Now we have London and some other places with 8 digit local numbers, Yet
more with 7 digits, most areas with 6 and some still with 5. Not to
mention that some area codes are 3 digits and others 4 (including 0).

Don't even get me started on 05, 07, 08 and 09.

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

"Richard Watson"  wrote in message 
news:Mcidnf-XBcujG2TbRVnyuwA@eclipse.net.uk...
<snip>
>
> It would have made far more sense to keep 01 for London and add in 
> an
> extra digit after it, which would allow for 100 million numbers, and
> then divide the rest of us into segments, so 02 for south east, 03 
> south
> west etc appending the current dialing code, so that then extra area
> codes could be added as required.
>

Would that not have meant changing (IIRC) Birmingham and some other 
places at the same time, not all the 0# range were available, London 
only changed to 020 after many other changed at the national level - 
perhaps we need to cross post this to the telecoms group?!...

:Jerry: wrote:
> "Richard Watson"  wrote in message 
> news:Mcidnf-XBcujG2TbRVnyuwA@eclipse.net.uk...
> <snip>
>> It would have made far more sense to keep 01 for London and add in 
>> an
>> extra digit after it, which would allow for 100 million numbers, and
>> then divide the rest of us into segments, so 02 for south east, 03 
>> south
>> west etc appending the current dialing code, so that then extra area
>> codes could be added as required.
>>
> 
> Would that not have meant changing (IIRC) Birmingham and some other 
> places at the same time, not all the 0# range were available, London 
> only changed to 020 after many other changed at the national level - 
> perhaps we need to cross post this to the telecoms group?!... 
> 
> 

Quite possibly it would have meant changing a lot of numbers at once and
without the fallback of the old number working for a while. However the
way around this might have been to change the non-london numbers first.

Even it was necessary I think with sufficient planning it would be
possible and although might cause a few problems to start with, people
would soon find out and get the hang of the new system.

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

"Richard Watson"  wrote in message 
news:bKGdnVEFpI9mYmTbnZ2dnUVZ8qTinZ2d@eclipse.net.uk...
> :Jerry: wrote:
>> "Richard Watson"  wrote in message
>> news:Mcidnf-XBcujG2TbRVnyuwA@eclipse.net.uk...
>> <snip>
>>> It would have made far more sense to keep 01 for London and add in
>>> an
>>> extra digit after it, which would allow for 100 million numbers, 
>>> and
>>> then divide the rest of us into segments, so 02 for south east, 03
>>> south
>>> west etc appending the current dialing code, so that then extra 
>>> area
>>> codes could be added as required.
>>>
>>
>> Would that not have meant changing (IIRC) Birmingham and some other
>> places at the same time, not all the 0# range were available, 
>> London
>> only changed to 020 after many other changed at the national 
>> level -
>> perhaps we need to cross post this to the telecoms group?!...
>>
>>
>
> Quite possibly it would have meant changing a lot of numbers at once 
> and
> without the fallback of the old number working for a while. However 
> the
> way around this might have been to change the non-london numbers 
> first.
> <snip>

I think the problem was that, at the time, business was still very 
London-centric and (Greater) London was simply running out of new 
numbers at the '01' level - something needed to be *within* London and 
obviously the quickest and most user friendly was to split inner and 
outer London.

Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>

> I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not.

It's a bad idea. The number would (in this example) be 020 7555 5555.
Chris

Chris Davies wrote:
> Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>> It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
> 
>> I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not.
> 
> It's a bad idea. The number would (in this example) be 020 7555 5555.
> Chris

OK, so I can understand why you put the first space where you did, but
why did you put the second space where it is?

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

Richard Watson wrote:
> Chris Davies wrote:
>>It's a bad idea. The number would (in this example) be 020 7555 5555.
> 
> OK, so I can understand why you put the first space where you did, but
> why did you put the second space where it is?

Making the number easier to read?
"Because we've always done it that way" ?

The reason why it was done in the first place, when London numbers had 
the XXX YYYY format, was because the XXX part identified the local 
exchange, even though you always had to dial all seven (now 8) digits 
for a local call.

I don't know if the physical mapping still applies - if you move to a 
different part of London, can you take your phone number with you?

Anahata
(who remembers when the numbers also mapped to exchange names
229 = BAYswater)

Chris Davies wrote:
> It's a bad idea. The number would (in this example) be 020 7555 5555.

Richard Watson  wrote:
> OK, so I can understand why you put the first space where you did, but
> why did you put the second space where it is?

I believe it's the recommended format. I've cross-posted to uk.telecom
where no doubt there are tens of people just waiting to answer this
burning question. ( :-) )

Chris

"Chris Davies"  wrote in message 
news:kr5ss4x1pm.ln2@news.roaima.co.uk...
> Chris Davies wrote:
>> It's a bad idea. The number would (in this example) be 020 7555 5555.
>
> Richard Watson  wrote:
>> OK, so I can understand why you put the first space where you did, but
>> why did you put the second space where it is?
>
> I believe it's the recommended format. I've cross-posted to uk.telecom
> where no doubt there are tens of people just waiting to answer this
> burning question. ( :-) )

The convention for all-figure numbers has always been that the final four 
digits are grouped together, the preceding "exchange" digits (three or four) 
are grouped together and the city digits are grouped together.

So the following are or have been valid formats

01-234-5678
071-234-5678
0171-234-5678
020-7234-5678

061-234-5678
0161-234-5678

To the purists, 0207-234-5678 is not a valid format, though it's a logical 
extrapolation of the 0171-234-5678 number which it superseded.

This has been done to make it easy to parse the number: all numbers with the 
same "exchange" group are (or used to be) in the same geographical part of 
the city.

In the case of London (and maybe the other all-figure cities) the exchange 
group of digits was chosen so that each group was a nmemonic for the 
district name, when the digits were translated to the corresponding letters 
on the dial, in the same way that STD codes for the rest of the country were 
chosen for letter nmemonics.

I think BT/Oftel chose where the spaces or hyphens are inserted to indicate 
which part of the number may be omitted when you live in the same city: in 
0171 days, you could dial just 234-5678 if you were phoning from another 
0171 number, whereas nowadays you must dial 7234-5678 from anywhere in 020 
London. As I understand it, two people in the (7)234 district must still 
dial the district code - they could never get away with just dialling 5678.

On 27 Sep, 11:58, "Mortimer"  wrote:

>  As I understand it, two people in the (7)234 district must still
> dial the district code - they could never get away with just dialling 5678.

If you think about it, this has to be true - otherwise it would be
impossible for them to call any number in the range 5678 xxxx. (OK,
that range isn't yet in use, but replace 5678 in your example with
7930.)

Steve Adams

Steve wrote:
> On 27 Sep, 11:58, "Mortimer"  wrote:
> 
>>  As I understand it, two people in the (7)234 district must still
>> dial the district code - they could never get away with just dialling 5678.

> If you think about it, this has to be true - otherwise it would be
> impossible for them to call any number in the range 5678 xxxx. (OK,
> that range isn't yet in use, but replace 5678 in your example with
> 7930.)

Do BT telephone exchanges still have to parse the digits sequentially?

This seems to be different from mobiles where 121 and 1210 can coexist
e.g. on vodafone.

I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

-- 
Richard Watson
"Mail delay is sometimes happened. If, unfortunately, it is happened to
you, please be patience."

Mike Roman wrote:
> "Dr J R Stockton"  wrote in message
> news:wf69nMOr$q9GFwM9@invalid.uk.co.demon.merlyn.invalid...
>> In uk.net.web.authoring message
>> , Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:51:07,
>> Andy Mabbett <usenet200309@pigsonthewing.org. uk> posted:
>>>
>>> It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>>>
>>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>
>> But it shows a degree of ignorance as to how a London telephone
>> number is properly written.
>
> Why, what's wrong with it?


It should be: 020 7555 5555

020 the code for London, 7555 5555 the local number.

You can dial 7555 5555 anywhere in London.

If you take the incorrect 0207 555 5555, people think the dialing code is 
0207 and local calling would be 555 5555 this is one digit short and your 
call will not connect.


-- 
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/MetricNow
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/dyna/rapex/rapex_archives_en.cfm

Richard Watson wrote:
> Do BT telephone exchanges still have to parse the digits sequentially?
> 
> This seems to be different from mobiles where 121 and 1210 can coexist
> e.g. on vodafone.

On a mobile network the numbers are never sent sequentially like that, 
so they can do this.

> I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
> ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

It hasn't in the past. An old fashioned pulse-dialling phone still works 
on modern telephone exchanges, and you often get ringing tone a fraction 
of a second after you've dialled the last digit, so I don't know what 
time limit you could set.

-- 
Anahata
anahata@treewind.co.uk -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444         Mob: 07976 263827

Richard Watson wrote:
> Do BT telephone exchanges still have to parse the digits sequentially?
> This seems to be different from mobiles where 121 and 1210 can coexist
> e.g. on vodafone.

Numbers starting 1 are service numbers and excepted from the usual 
numbering plan regs. And on a mobile phone they're more akin to 'command 
codes' rather than real numbers.

> I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
> ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

It would be hard to set a timer that would be long enough to accommodate 
the dexterity-impaired without pssing off the majority and resulting is 
a large number of wrongly dialled calls.

Owain

On 27/9/07 2:21 pm, in article
0IOdnfccD6fNM2bbnZ2dnUVZ8tOmnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk, "Richard Watson"
 wrote:

> I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
> ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

My office is in a business park and we get the choice of using the centre's
phone system or getting a BT line installed.  When on the centre's system
your number is just a DDI extension on their network and you have to dial 9
for an outside line.  If I dial 901234 and then pause for more than about 3
or 4 seconds to look at the number on a piece of paper before finishing I
get "Sorry, the number you have dialled has not been recognised".  Hit last
number redial and the call goes through.

-- 
Andy Jacobs
http://www.redcatmedia.co.uk

On 2007-09-27, Richard Watson  wrote:
> Steve wrote:
>> On 27 Sep, 11:58, "Mortimer"  wrote:
>> 
>>>  As I understand it, two people in the (7)234 district must still
>>> dial the district code - they could never get away with just dialling 5678.
>
>> If you think about it, this has to be true - otherwise it would be
>> impossible for them to call any number in the range 5678 xxxx. (OK,
>> that range isn't yet in use, but replace 5678 in your example with
>> 7930.)
>
> Do BT telephone exchanges still have to parse the digits sequentially?
>
> This seems to be different from mobiles where 121 and 1210 can coexist
> e.g. on vodafone.
>
> I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
> ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

I forget the details, but I beleive there was a time during one of the
various renumbering events (probably 0171/01781 -> 020) where there
was a timeout to distinguish between numbers, but it was only ever
temporary.

-- 
David Taylor

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:08:28 UTC, Andy Jacobs 
wrote:

> On 27/9/07 2:21 pm, in article
> 0IOdnfccD6fNM2bbnZ2dnUVZ8tOmnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk, "Richard Watson"
>  wrote:
> 
> > I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
> > ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?
> 
> My office is in a business park and we get the choice of using the centre's
> phone system or getting a BT line installed.  When on the centre's system
> your number is just a DDI extension on their network and you have to dial 9
> for an outside line.  If I dial 901234 and then pause for more than about 3
> or 4 seconds to look at the number on a piece of paper before finishing I
> get "Sorry, the number you have dialled has not been recognised".  Hit last
> number redial and the call goes through.

Our PBX at home does that. Three digit numbers starting with 2 are 
internal extensions. Dial the fourth digit within a given time and it's 
treated as an external number. So it uses the timeout to avoid dialling 
a 9!

-- 
Bob Eager
begin  123  a new life...take up Extreme Ironing!

On 27/9/07 2:37 pm, in article
jmOKi.21412$c_1.15184@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk, "{{{{{Welcome}}}}}"
 wrote:

> If you take the incorrect 0207 555 5555, people think the dialing code is
> 0207 and local calling would be 555 5555 this is one digit short and your
> call will not connect.

I remember years ago (Probably mid 1980's), my girlfriend's work number was
0703 xxx100.  However, it still worked if you just dialled 0703 xxx10 and
left the last zero off.

> http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/MetricNow

Getting completely off topic, one thing has always puzzled me...

Henry Ford was generally credited as being responsible for bringing the
motor car to the masses.  He was American.

Why then do the Americans specify engine sizes in cubic inches and we use
the metric cubic centimetres?

-- 
Andy Jacobs
http://www.redcatmedia.co.uk

Andy Jacobs wrote:

> I remember years ago (Probably mid 1980's), my girlfriend's work number was
> 0703 xxx100.  However, it still worked if you just dialled 0703 xxx10 and
> left the last zero off.

Most likely they had a block of lines (hunting group?) allocated to 0703 
xxx10x so any final digit would have reached them.

> Henry Ford was generally credited as being responsible for bringing the
> motor car to the masses.  He was American.
> 
> Why then do the Americans specify engine sizes in cubic inches and we use
> the metric cubic centimetres?

The Americans do everything (except drugs) in non metric units. I was 
going to say Imperial but their gallons are different.

So what's to be surprised about, and what does Henry Ford have to do 
with it?

-- 
Anahata
anahata@treewind.co.uk -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444         Mob: 07976 263827

"Andy Jacobs"  wrote in message 
news:C321BE3C.D706%nospam@redcatgroup.co.uk...
> On 27/9/07 2:21 pm, in article
> 0IOdnfccD6fNM2bbnZ2dnUVZ8tOmnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk, "Richard Watson"
>  wrote:
>
>> I realise that there's no real equivalent of a Send button in plain
>> ordinary phones, but surely some kind of timer comes into play?

There are two types of routing decisions used at exchanges -- en-bloc 
signalling where the exchange expects to see a number long enough to route, 
and overlap signalling where each number is swallowed one by one until a 
routing decision can be made. Tandem switches (ie, switches that route calls 
from lesser exchanges and use en-bloc signalling) will send back an error 
code (28 IIRC) if the number supplied en-bloc is not long enough to route.

With overlap signalling, there is a timer that will time out if you pause 
too long before a long enough number has been swallowed by the exchange.

Regards
Andrew

On 27/9/07 8:31 pm, in article 13fo18fg72uctda@corp.supernews.com, "anahata"
<anahata@reply-to.address> wrote:

> Andy Jacobs wrote:
> 
>> I remember years ago (Probably mid 1980's), my girlfriend's work number was
>> 0703 xxx100.  However, it still worked if you just dialled 0703 xxx10 and
>> left the last zero off.
> 
> Most likely they had a block of lines (hunting group?) allocated to 0703
> xxx10x so any final digit would have reached them.
> 
>> Henry Ford was generally credited as being responsible for bringing the
>> motor car to the masses.  He was American.
>> 
>> Why then do the Americans specify engine sizes in cubic inches and we use
>> the metric cubic centimetres?
> 
> The Americans do everything (except drugs) in non metric units. I was
> going to say Imperial but their gallons are different.
> 
> So what's to be surprised about, and what does Henry Ford have to do
> with it?

The surprise is that even before we went metric we were still measuring
engine capacity in cubic centimetres.  So, the UK, historically an imperial
nation, inherit something from another imperial nation and decide to change
the units that they use to specify something into a unit that isn't natural
to us.

-- 
Andy Jacobs
http://www.redcatmedia.co.uk

"Andy Jacobs"  wrote in message 
news:C323131F.D735%nospam@redcatgroup.co.uk...
<snip>
>
> The surprise is that even before we went metric we were still 
> measuring
> engine capacity in cubic centimetres.  So, the UK, historically an 
> imperial
> nation, inherit something from another imperial nation and decide to 
> change
> the units that they use to specify something into a unit that isn't 
> natural
> to us.
>

Probably because the FIA (founded in 1904) is Paris based...

On 28/9/07 9:52 pm, in article
46fd6af8$0$47118$892e7fe2@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net, ":Jerry:"
<INVALID@INVALID.INVALID> wrote:

> 
> "Andy Jacobs"  wrote in message
> news:C323131F.D735%nospam@redcatgroup.co.uk...
> <snip>
>> 
>> The surprise is that even before we went metric we were still
>> measuring
>> engine capacity in cubic centimetres.  So, the UK, historically an
>> imperial
>> nation, inherit something from another imperial nation and decide to
>> change
>> the units that they use to specify something into a unit that isn't
>> natural
>> to us.
>> 
> 
> Probably because the FIA (founded in 1904) is Paris based...

But that's motorsport and the Ford Motor Company started in 1903.

-- 
Andy Jacobs
http://www.redcatmedia.co.uk

"Andy Jacobs"  wrote in message 
news:C3233B74.D753%nospam@redcatgroup.co.uk...
> On 28/9/07 9:52 pm, in article
> 46fd6af8$0$47118$892e7fe2@authen.yellow.readfreenews.net, ":Jerry:"
> <INVALID@INVALID.INVALID> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Andy Jacobs"  wrote in message
>> news:C323131F.D735%nospam@redcatgroup.co.uk...
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> The surprise is that even before we went metric we were still
>>> measuring
>>> engine capacity in cubic centimetres.  So, the UK, historically an
>>> imperial
>>> nation, inherit something from another imperial nation and decide 
>>> to
>>> change
>>> the units that they use to specify something into a unit that 
>>> isn't
>>> natural
>>> to us.
>>>
>>
>> Probably because the FIA (founded in 1904) is Paris based...
>
> But that's motorsport and the Ford Motor Company started in 1903.
>

The FIA and motor sport were formed to act design catalyst for 
automobile design and development, the ethos of F1 is still to further 
automobile design.

Also, remember that Mr Ford didn't invent the motor car, all he did 
was invent a way of making them as cheaply as possible, the leading 
lights (in the late 1800s) were here in the UK, Germany and France.

In message , Andy Mabbett
 writes

>
>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>
>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>
>I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not. What about the
>issues for novice users who will think the link should be clickable in
>their default browser set up?

So: /apart/ from the "0207 555" vs. "020 7555" spacing issue, does
anyone have any views?

-- 
Andy Mabbett
            *  Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards:  <http://www.no2id.net/>
            *  Free Our Data:  <http://www.freeourdata.org.uk>
            *  Are you using Microformats, yet: <http://microformats.org/> ?

On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 23:13:01 +0100, Andy Mabbett put finger to keyboard
and typed:

>In message , Andy Mabbett
> writes
>
>>
>>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>>
>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>
>>I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not. What about the
>>issues for novice users who will think the link should be clickable in
>>their default browser set up?
>
>So: /apart/ from the "0207 555" vs. "020 7555" spacing issue, does
>anyone have any views?

I don't think you should make something a hyperlink unless there is
good reason to assume that most visitors to the site will have a
browser, or a browser plugin, capable of utilising the link.

Mark
-- 
http://www.MotorwayServices.info - read and share comments and opinons
"Wouldn't you love somebody to love?"

In message , Andy Mabbett
 writes
>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>

>I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not.

Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> So: /apart/ from the "0207 555" vs. "020 7555" spacing issue, does
> anyone have any views?

Well, "tel" is a registered URI scheme (according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URI_scheme#Official_IANA-registered_schemes)
so for those of us with SIP softphones and browsers that understand
extensible URI schemes it should "just work".

I like the idea; I think I'd go for it. (I wonder if it's possible
to write a javascript function that checks whether a particular URI
scheme is supported on the user's browser? If so then you could catch
an activation click with an alert() message box instead of failing badly.)

Chris

"Mark Goodge"  wrote in message 
news:obd6g3lu5q5f3u17ut1v5lo8nutbjdcahs@news.markshouse.net...
> On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 23:13:01 +0100, Andy Mabbett put finger to keyboard
> and typed:
>
>>In message , Andy Mabbett
>> writes
>>
>>>
>>>It's possible to display telephone numbers as:
>>>
>>>        <a href="tel:+442075555555">0207 555 5555</a>
>>>
>>>I can't decide whether this is a a good idea or not. What about the
>>>issues for novice users who will think the link should be clickable in
>>>their default browser set up?
>>
>>So: /apart/ from the "0207 555" vs. "020 7555" spacing issue, does
>>anyone have any views?
>
> I don't think you should make something a hyperlink unless there is
> good reason to assume that most visitors to the site will have a
> browser, or a browser plugin, capable of utilising the link.

So is this all about Skype style web calls?