FCC Considering 10-Digit Dialing [UPDATED]

Ambiguo writes: "An article in today's LA Times is reporting today that tomorrow the FCC will begin considering switching to 10 digit phone numbers, starting as early as next month. There's a lot of opposition to it, especially since there was a large backlash when LA tried this a little while ago, but some say it's a stepping stone to the eventual 11 or 12 digit phone number of the future." Update: 12/06 4:33 PM by michael: The FCC is not going to switch us all to 10-digit numbers. Yet.

Comments

Hexidecimal

[Hard_Code]

So when will they be coming out with hexidecimal touchtone phones?

"Family Steakhouse: phone DEADBEEF for reservations."

Re:What a bunch of FUD

[krlynch]

I think you missed the point that people are complaining about (not that I blame you...I KNEW what the problem was (from my dad, who works in the industry), and I had to read the article three times to find it).

This would be 10 digit dialing to everyone, everywhere in the USA, all the time. You would NEVER have to dial 1 for a toll call; all calls 10 digits, all the time (0, 911, 311, 411, 611 excepted of course). So, some "consumer advocates" are concerned that people would be too stupid to figure out whether they are making a toll call when they don't have to dial a 1 (even though most people don't know what the leading 1 really means anyway).

Not having to assign special meaning to the leading 1 means that another 100 area codes open up, and the system not having to figure out whether you will be dialing 10 or 7 digits means that you can add exchanges starting with 0 and 1, for another 2x10^6 numbers per area code. Plus, the system becomes much LESS confusing for the users, as it will always be the same procedure for making a call, and you will never have your phone number (area code) changed out from under you again.

Local or long distance?

[garver]

But outraged consumer advocates and state regulators say adopting 10-digit dialing is unnecessary and would create confusion about the distinction between a local and long-distance call.

I can see a point here, but only kind of. Traditionally, when you dial a number with a "1" at the front, you are going to get charged. Without the "1" it is free. All of that is out the window with this change.

BUT! I'm in Verizon's monopoly and routinely dial a 7 digit number (no "1"'s anywhere) and get charged. Granted, I was pissed the first time, but now I'm used to it. In fact, nowadays, I completely ignore whether it is long distance or not. Partly because the charges are peanuts and I now have an income, but mostly because I now usually use my mobile which doesn't differentiate between a free or toll call.

I'll tell you what the problem is

[andyf]

Read the article. :) The problem isn't that we'd all have to dial 10 digits, it's that the FCC wants to change the fundamental meaning of the 'sacred' 0 and 1 in a phone number

FCC officials contend that 10-digit dialing would create tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0."

1 signifies dialing a long-distance call, a toll call in all cases except 1-800, 1-500, 1-888, 1-8NN. 0 signifies an operator-assisted call. If the FCC would change this so that you could be dialing crosstown into a different area code and dial a 1 or 0 but not be making a long-distance or operator assisted call. Then, what happens if you hit an extra digit? Look:

Local cross-area call: 162-523-3445

But then add an extra digit, either through a slip of a key, or dialing one of those 777-MONEY numbers or something.

Your local call changes to: 1-625-233-4450, a long distance call. That's what the problem is really about.

Explanation

[flamingcow]

For those of you who don't know what 10-digit dialing is (the article isn't very clear), he's an explanation from a phone company employee:

Users have to dial all 10 digits of a phone number whether its inside their area code or not; all phone numbers in the US are 10 digits. This frees up leading numbers such as 0 and 1 for creation of new exchanges and area codes. Please note that adding 0 and 1 to the set of 2-8 increases the size by 25%: thats not too much at the rate that number use is growing in the US. However, any move to 11 or 12 digit phone numbers should be dialing the entire number, so this is a step in the right direction.

Not really.

[Pahroza]

If you know that the first 3 digits you dial will always be the same (or maybe vary between 2 different sets), then that becomes part of your long term memory, to which you can easily append the other 7.

Re:Why didn't they just make area codes four digit

[Chester K]

it would have been better in every way just to expand area codes to four digits

Four digit area codes would introduce ambiguity into the actual meaning of the digits you dialed.

Currently, the rules for dialing are relatively simple:

Any call beginning with 2-9 is a number that consists of seven digits, except if the initial digit is followed by two 1's.

Any call beginning with 1 is a number that consists of 11 digits, unless the next three digits are 010, in which case, the next three digits are used to specify a long distance carrier (220, for example), which is then followed by the remainder of the original number. (Originally the long distance carrier choice only needed to be proceeded by a 0, but recent changes in the phone network have required the extra 1-0).

0#, or 0 followed by a timeout will get you to an operator. 0 followed by 10 digits will get you operator help for that specific number. 0 followed by 1, followed by other numbers is the format for international dialing.

How would four-digit area codes fit into the system without creating any ambiguity? Perhaps if a direct call began with 11, but what about the other methods of dialing an area code?

We've got it in Denver already

[grappler]

Denver has had this for over a year. Big deal.

I think the phone companys should go straight to IPv6 and give every phone an IP address. Any kind of plan involving a single identifier to reach a person anywhere would be accomplished through creative use of DNS, and could involve actual names and words. The accounts themselves might possibly use a email-like name@provider kind of system. But I dream.


-------

Re:Got it here

[martyb]

So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?

First off, it ain't just the people who have to learn to use the new numbers. It implies the need to update all the auto-dialing devices like alarm systems, speed dial numbers, ISP's numbers for modems, and fax machines. Yet, this isn't the whole of it.

These 10-digit phone numbers have to be processed by telecom switches to make the calls go through. Check out: North American numbering Plan Administration for the latest news about proposed changes and their implementations. As others have pointed out, there were choices made at the outset about the formatting of telephone numbers that permitted the switches to make optimizations in processing the number - as it was being dialed. For example: Starts with a '2'? Then it can't be long distance. Check the local NXXs that start with a '2'.

There is also the concept of permissive dialing. Even though it's NOT REQUIRED to dial the area code, I've long looked forward to being able to put in the whole telephone number (e.g. 1-212-345-6789) in my laptop's list of ISP's telephone numbers, and let the telco sort things out.

Once the people had grown accustomed to using 10-digit numbers everywhere, then it would make sense to me to change from PERMISSIVE 10-digit dialing to MANDATORY.

There are web sites and newsgroups dedicated to telephony (teh-LEF-oh-knee). Here's a newsgroup that I've found helpful: "comp.dcom.telecom" There's also a whole slew of useful sites accessible from google's telephony area.

What I _REALLY_ would love to see is ..

[UnknownSoldier]

_ONE_ friggin number, that stays the same no matter where I move, and 2 spare digits on the end, so a cell, fax, pager, computer, all share a common number.

i.e.

AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00 = phone
AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-01 = cell
AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02 = fax
AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-03 = pager
AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-04 = computer

We have the technology, so why aren't we more interested in making things easier for ourselves!

--
The nice thing about standards, is that there are so many to pick from! - Anonymous

Got it here

[Mr Z]

We have 10-digit dialing here in the D/FW metroplex, and it works fine as far as I'm concerned. I've often wondered when they'd go ahead and just switch the whole nation. It's rather annoying to have to remember as you're traveling whether a given area is 10-digit or 7-digit. I haven't heard anyone complain about 10-digit dialing being annoying as comparied to 7-digit.

So who was making the fuss? Any legitimate reason other than "I don't like it"?

--Joe
--
Program Intellivision!

Re:Got it here

[Detritus]

One problem is that with 7-digit dialing you know that if a call goes through then it's a local call.

No, you don't.

There are areas that have 7-digit toll calls. Correlation is not causation.

Re:Got it here

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

No, the 1 and 0 would not be allowed at the beginning of an area code, only at the beginning of a prefix (it is still a bad idea, IMO).

Now with mandatory 10 digit dialing, and area codes >= 200, here are the possibilities:

Local call: NXX-XXX-XXXX
Long distance: 1-NXX-XXX-XXXX

X is any digit, N is any digit >= 2.
I use that notation later on in this post; it is
standard telecom notation.

The switch can tell the two apart. One means long distance, 2 or greater is local. It could not if
the area code was optional, e.g. is it 180-0555 or 1-800-555 that is being dialed. If 180-0555 is a real phone number, it would conflict with 1-800-555-xxxx. I know the switch could use a time out, but having the wrong number get dialed due to a delay in dialing is generally a bad thing.

The article doesn't say area codes would be switched from NXX to XXX. Just prefixes.

I recently wrote code which validates that a phone number is at least somewhat legit. It does not check lists of prefixes or numbers, but checks that it is NXX and not N11 and not 555. That would have to be rewritten.

Remember, not too long ago, prefixes were NNX and area codes were N0X and N1X. And we only had 800 for toll free. Now we have 800, 888, 877, 866 (recently opened - in actual use) and 855 (theoretically open - if not in use will be soon), talk of 844 in a couple of years and maybe even 833 and 822 eventually, NXX prefixes, NXX area codes and we are still running out of numbers! The article says we may need 11 or 12 digit dialing even with XXX prefixes.

Why are we in such a crisis? I know people have more phone numbers for computers, pagers, faxes, cell phones, etc, but is it really THAT extreme?

Re:Got it here

[billybob2001]

What's the problem?

I've had 10-digit dialing since I was old enough to reach a phone.

2 hands, 5 digits on each = 10 digits.

Of course, back then, phones really had dials, with 10 digits on them.

More than just *remembering* another few digits

[Jeff Mahoney]

I'm sure the uproar isn't just over the ability to remember another digit.

There's serious money involved in the switch, when companies have to reprint stationary, advertisements, business cards.. make sure their applications can handle longer phone numbers correctly.

Seriously, just think about how many times when you enter your phone number while ordering something, if you mistype it -- it tells you that it's formatted wrong. That's just a small example of code that needs to be changed.

Just food for thought..

-Jeff

12 digit numbers?

[Wattsman]

Oh, great. I can see films in the future now.
"Hold on, let me get something to write down your number. It's 127 000 000 001. O.K."

Beginning with the digit "1" or "0"

[Philom]

... tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0."

I don't know about you, but to me this makes more sense if it refers to a "1" or "0" at the beginning of the current seven digit portion of the number. Seven digit numbers cannot begin with a "1" or "0" because that would indicate a long distance call, but if everyone were to switch to ten digit dialing, there would be a whole new range of xxx-0xx-xxxx and xxx-1xx-xxxx numbers that weren't usable before. This would make 25% more numbers possible in every area code. The new ten digit numbers could still exclude "1" and "0" from the first position to help avoid confusion over long distance dialing.

Re:Beginning with the digit "1" or "0"

[ConceptJunkie]

You're correct. Here's the relevant quote from the L.A. Times since a lot of people seem to have missed it:

FCC officials contend that 10-digit dialing would create tens of millions of new local phone numbers beginning with the digit "1" or "0." Currently, ones and zeros can't be used at the beginning of a seven-digit local number because they signal that the caller is making a long-distance or operator-assisted call.

Just add two more digits

[laetus]

Just add two more digits: AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-01 = phone1 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-02 = phone2 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-00-03 = phone3 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-01 = cell AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02-01 = fax1 AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-02-02 = fax2
----------------------------------

Sparse matrix problem

[kerpen]

Before we get really ambitious with something like a common number for all your devices, let's get local number portability. If local numbers were portable there would be *no shortage* of telephone numbers. 10 digit numbers with no 1 or 0 to start the area code or the exchange is 8^2(10^8) = 6.4 billion phone numbers. With a population of ~275 million that's more than 20 phone numbers for every man, woman, child, and little baby in the country.

The whole problem is that there are some exchanges with tons of unused numbers and others that are full. Each area code has 8 million numbers. If we got local number portability, all 8 million would be used. Now *that* would sure beat overlays and splits, let alone mandatory 10 digit dialing just to reclaim 0 and 1.

Web site on NorAm numbering plan alternatives

[isdnip]

I've got a web site that discusses an alternative view of North American Numbering Plan expansion. The industry committee (no, consumers don't count) is leaning towards allowing 0/1 at the beginning of a prefix code, since it'll always be after an area code, and then stretching the area codes to 4 digits (using the second digit 9 as transition, or inserting 1 or 0 after the area code). I find this far from ideal.

North American Numbering Plan Forum presents my alternative. It ends up with 8-digit local dialing (4+4), which should be adequate for all but the largest metro areas (which will need two area codes). It also sorts the area codes into geographic, nongeographic/functional and an expanded freephone (800, etc.) space.

Implementation of such a change will take years, because there are necessary transition phases, the first of which is to move to mandatory 10-digit local dialing. Assume that that is inevitable; the only question is when. The plan I discuss has no flag days, plenty of "permissive" time for every stage of transition, and makes new numbers predictable.

The web site is a Delphi board, which means that it has its own discussion forum. I dont' know if it's a good idea to advertise it on /. :-) but hey it could use some activity!