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11 Digit Dialing Comes Home to New York

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the isn't-that-a-pain dept.

Traicovn writes "The NY Times (free registration, yadda yadda) is carrying an article about 11 digit dialing coming to the city of New York for all phone calls, including inner city calls. Yes, that means even to dial across the street you will have to dial 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. Eventually as the phone number system fills up because of more people having cellphones/pager/fax and a home/office phone line we may see this happening in more cities across the nation or the NANPA may have to intervene by making phone numbers longer in general."

6 of 654 comments (clear)

  1. It just won't sound the same... by vought · · Score: 5, Funny

    One-two-one-two-eight-six-seven-five-three-oh niyeeeeeiyne!

  2. Why the '1' ?? by blakespot · · Score: 5, Insightful
    We have had to use 10-digit dialing here in the DC area (I am in Alexandria, VA in NoVA) for a while now and I don't see what adding a 1 is going to do...esp. if you add it to each call.


    So 10-digit == 11-digit dialing, basically, no?



    blakespot

    --
    -- Heisenberg may have slept here.
    iPod Hacks.com
  3. Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode ... by JSkills · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... where Elaine gives some guy she meets her phone number with the new "646" area code. The guy's like "so how far away do you live?" and "so do I have to dial 1 first"? He eventually makes up an excuse to get away from her, just so he doesn't have to deal with the different area code issue.

    Ok, mod me down now, that was pretty off topic. Sorry.

  4. Re:And again US catches up with the rest of the wo by NMerriam · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why is whenever the US catches up with the rest of the world in phone technology it is considered "news"? We've been using 11 digit number in the UK for years.

    Catch up? So if we used 22-digit dialing, the US would be "ahead" of the UK in telecommunications?

    --
    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  5. Miscellaneous by tommck · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1) Is it me or is everyone in this thread mathematically challenged? Philly doesn't have 11 digit dialing, neither does Massachusetts. They have 10 digit dialing, right?

    2) And, if you add the SAME number to the beginning of everything, that gives you nothing. Why would they do that?

    3) I used to work on phone switch software, and the only reason I can see is that they don't want to have to differentiate between a local (i.e. 10 digit) call and a long distance (i.e. 11 digit) call. This way, the switch can run less code. No need to wait before it starts routing the call. It can start routing as soon as you start typing numbers. This, and the use of reserved area codes (\d[0,1]\d) as exchanges, was the big motivator behind the 10 digit move.

    T

    --
    ---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
  6. Re:Better Idea by Ducon+Lajoie · · Score: 5, Informative
    It exists (more or less) and it's called ENUM. It's a IETF WG. You can find the marketing stuff here.

    Before you go running in the streets naked yelling Eureka, consider the privacy implication of the said technology and other related issues. Google it. Thanks.