Why can't you dial 0044 from a UK landline

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Ivor Jones wrote:
> "stephen" <> wrote in message
> news:1SxTh.3597$.net
>
> [snip]
>
>> 0044 for a mobile or a cable number works on an ex NTL
>> cable phone (one of the few things that does - no caller
>> line ID for example)
>>
>> i use my work mobile in the UK and abroad, so have +44 on
>> the stored numbers to make life easier. Works on the
>> various mobile networks.
>
> Same here, but we're discussing landlines not mobiles.
>
> Ivor


Would seem strange wanting to dial in that fashion, I only tried it
years back to see what happened.

Though maybe it could be due copying direct from SIM from a mobile.


--
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Ivor Jones

"Graham" <> wrote in message
news:evmdt4$q0n$
> "Ivor Jones" <ivor@despammed.invalid> wrote in message
> news:...

[snip]

> > Why dial 0044 when 0 works perfectly well..?
>
> Just a question of standardisation

The single digit 0 *is* the standard for dialling from UK landlines to
other UK landlines.

> We both remember a time when you were barred from dialling
> your own STD code so dialling 012468071 from London
> gave you the recorded rebuke:
> "You need dial only the last seven digits for calls
> within the London area. Please redial omitting the
> figures oh one"
> Then they changed things so you could dial the national
> number, good job to as Londoners these days don't seem to
> know if their local number are 7 or 8 digits.
>
> You might say that you might forget which STD area you
> are in but you are unlikely not to know what country you
> are in at any given time. True.

Bring back dial labels, phones don't seem to have their own numbers on
them any more. I never forgot where I was with a 746, even when drunk..!

> But what if a foreign user DISAs into my system and picks
> up a trunk and makes a call. He doesn't know if the trunk
> is GSM VoIP PSTN or whatever, why can't he assume
> that a fully qualified number will always be accepted?

Hmm, you allow foreign users DISA access into your system to dial out
again..? Ok, even assuming that's true, anyone with the knowledge of how
to do that in the first place would surely know where your system was
located and what format to dial in..?


Ivor

Graham

>
> Bring back dial labels, phones don't seem to have their own numbers on
> them any more. I never forgot where I was with a 746, even when drunk..!

"Pull dial round to the stop, then let go", yes I know it's hard to remember
when you've had a skinfull.

> Hmm, you allow foreign users DISA access into your system to dial out
> again..? Ok, even assuming that's true, anyone with the knowledge of how
> to do that in the first place would surely know where your system was
> located and what format to dial in..?

Well yes, I was being hypothetical, just as my OP wasn't written to
address any practical need of my own.

Here's a better scenario.
What if I had one of those PDA type things with a phone book
which can dial a number via acoustically coupled DTMF?
I would need to enter each UK number twice so I could use it
at home or abroad.
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

R. Mark Clayton

"J B" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Graham" <> wrote in message
> news:evlmlo$n5$...
>> Why can't you dial a uk number in international format from a uk
>> landline?
>
> It isn't still 1st April is it?
>
> Works fine here!

Not here (0161), but works fine from mobiles.

>
>
> --
>
> J B
>

Dennis Ferguson

On 2007-04-13, Graham <> wrote:
> Here's a better scenario.
> What if I had one of those PDA type things with a phone book
> which can dial a number via acoustically coupled DTMF?
> I would need to enter each UK number twice so I could use it
> at home or abroad.

You've just discovered the problem of maintaining a phone book
in a USA CDMA phone. They can roam in 20 or 30 countries but
they don't understand '+'.

There is no really good solution for this. It isn't just
the UK where some phone services don't understand local numbers
being dialed with the local equivalent of 0044, and you can't
even rely on '00' being the international dialing prefix (it
is '011' in the +1 area, and '001' in Hong Kong, for example).

I had a bad solution for this for the CDMA phone I owned which
travelled with me frequently between the USA and Mexico. I had
a utility which would load the phone's phonebook from a file, via
USB. I kept the numbers in the file in '+' format, and then used
an editor to search-and-replace the '+' into the right dialing
sequence for the country I was going to, loading the result into
the phone. For the USA this was

+1 -> 1
+ -> 011

while in Mexico this was

+52 -> 0
+ -> 00

I kept losing contacts I typed into the phonebook but forgot to
copy out to the file, however, so I gave up.

Whoever invented '+' for GSM was really clever.

Dennis Ferguson

Mike Barnes

In uk.telecom, Graham wrote:
>Here's a better scenario.
>What if I had one of those PDA type things with a phone book
>which can dial a number via acoustically coupled DTMF?
>I would need to enter each UK number twice so I could use it
>at home or abroad.

Stepping back a bit, it's would clearly be desirable to have *one* phone
number which could be dialled "as is" from any public-network phone in
the world. Why settle for anything less?

--
Mike Barnes

Jim Howes

Ivor Jones wrote:
> The question that springs to mind is why would you want to dial more
> digits than necessary to route the call..?
>
> Why dial 0044 when 0 works perfectly well..?

At a guess, probably something like this...

I store all numbers in my mobile in the format +441234567890, instead of
01234567890. This makes no difference in the UK, but if I am abroad, it saves
me tearing my hair out trying to remember a number long enough to manually dial
it with the +44 on the front.

With any number of weird and wonderful (and not so wonderful) devices being
capable of making telephone calls these days; devices which can be unplugged and
presumably moved to somewhere in another country on a daily basis (or across
something as simple as the border between northern Ireland and the republic),
such a dialling feature would be desirable.

I'm guessing exchange support for decoding local-country international dialling
prefixes is not universal.

For the purposes of this particular thread:

01329 (Fareham Exchange) ISDN DASS2 - Opal LCR -> Long pause, then NU
Same line, not using LCR -> 'Number not recognised' somewhere in mid-dialling
(may be CPS - Office line, not sure.. :-( )
Same line, not using LCR with 1280 prefix -> 'Number not recognised' after 0044

Robin Fairbairns

Jim Howes <sewoh.mij@moc.gisorp.backwards.invalid> writes:
>Ivor Jones wrote:
>> The question that springs to mind is why would you want to dial more
>> digits than necessary to route the call..?
>>
>> Why dial 0044 when 0 works perfectly well..?
>
>At a guess, probably something like this...
>
>I store all numbers in my mobile in the format +441234567890, instead
>of 01234567890. This makes no difference in the UK, but if I am
>abroad, it saves me tearing my hair out trying to remember a number
>long enough to manually dial it with the +44 on the front.

fwiw, when setting up the memory of my current mobile, this issue
hadn't occurred to me, and the numbers in it are (almost exclusively)
01* or 02*.

nevertheless, on one of my infrequent trips abroad, i dialled one of
these numbers ... and it worked. so the phone presumably has
knowledge of where it is, and emits +44 as necessary. i wouldn't be
surprised to learn that your phone _doesn't_ emit +44 for all those uk
numbers; i don't know how one might find out...
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge

Ivor Jones

"Robin Fairbairns" <.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:evnqda$ij7$.cam.ac.uk

[snip]

> fwiw, when setting up the memory of my current mobile,
> this issue hadn't occurred to me, and the numbers in it
> are (almost exclusively) 01* or 02*.
>
> nevertheless, on one of my infrequent trips abroad, i
> dialled one of these numbers ... and it worked. so the
> phone presumably has knowledge of where it is, and emits
> +44 as necessary. i wouldn't be surprised to learn that
> your phone _doesn't_ emit +44 for all those uk numbers; i
> don't know how one might find out...

Ok so we're getting a little OT here as the thread is supposed to be about
landlines not mobiles, but I use Tesco PAYG and they clearly state that
when abroad you should dial in the same way as you would in the UK, i.e.
0121xxxxxxx for a Birmingham number. No mention of + or 44 or anything.


Ivor

Mike Barnes

In uk.telecom, Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> Jim Howes <sewoh.mij@moc.gisorp.backwards.invalid> writes:
>>Ivor Jones wrote:
>>> The question that springs to mind is why would you want to dial more
>>> digits than necessary to route the call..?
>>>
>>> Why dial 0044 when 0 works perfectly well..?
>>
>>At a guess, probably something like this...
>>
>>I store all numbers in my mobile in the format +441234567890, instead
>>of 01234567890. This makes no difference in the UK, but if I am
>>abroad, it saves me tearing my hair out trying to remember a number
>>long enough to manually dial it with the +44 on the front.
>
>fwiw, when setting up the memory of my current mobile, this issue
>hadn't occurred to me, and the numbers in it are (almost exclusively)
>01* or 02*.
>
>nevertheless, on one of my infrequent trips abroad, i dialled one of
>these numbers ... and it worked.

Was that a phone call or a text? AFAIK the rules are different - calls
to numbers without "+" are relative to the country of the base station
you're connected to, but texts to numbers without "+" are relative to
the country of your SIM's number. It's daft that they're different but
that's the way I understand it - no doubt someone will put me right if
I'm wrong.

>so the phone presumably has
>knowledge of where it is,

You can bet on that.

>and emits +44 as necessary.

I'm not sure it's that simple.

>i wouldn't be
>surprised to learn that your phone _doesn't_ emit +44 for all those uk
>numbers;

I'd hope it doesn't, for a phone call. That would be *really*
inconvenient when actually trying to dial a local number.

--
Mike Barnes