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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Dial '1' first, etc. - (nf)
Message-ID: <361@ima.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Jul-83 18:36:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: ima.361
Posted: Thu Jul 28 18:36:21 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Jul-83 12:29:47 EDT
Lines: 19

#R:vortex:-7200:ima:14600007:000:1028
ima!johnl    Jul 28 14:14:00 1983

International dialing is something that even Bell's international operators
don't understand yet.  Example:  I wanted to call somebody in Devonport,
Tasmania whose phone number I didn't know.  So I called the 800 number
for international information and got some operator in Florida, explained
what I wanted, we got the Australian operator on the line, and got the local
phone number.  No sweat.  All I needed then was the Australian dialing code
for that part of Tasmania, but by then the Australian operator had hung up
and I asked the U.S. operator, who was after all supposed to know about
these things, and she looked and said something like "it says 04 so that
means you dial 4."  Of course, it didn't work.  After a good deal of
experimentation, it finally turned out that you DO dial the 0, somebody
in AT&T has this bogus idea that all over the world you dial 0 for long
distance so you always disregard a leading 0 in foreign dialing codes, but
they're wrong.  Bah.  Humbug.  Pfui.  Flame off.

John Levine, ima!johnl