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."

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.

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.


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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

[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?