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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Phone Numbers
Message-ID: <495@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Jan-85 18:02:02 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.495
Posted: Sat Jan  5 18:02:02 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Jan-85 03:18:37 EST
References: <316@utcs.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 38

OK, here's the answer.  The +1 referred to by the original European
message is simply a CONVENTION for indicating the country code
of interest, it isn't necessarily the actual dialing sequence for 
calling your number from other countries, just a way of indicating
what your country code is in case someone else needs it someday.

Using this convention, a U.S. business card might read:

+1 (311) 555-2368

The +1 isn't the 1 you dial for DDD calls, but rather just the
indicator of your country code for other people who might
need that information.  They almost certainly would NOT simply
dial that number sequence to get to you--they'd typically have their
own (varying) lead-in codes to deal with as well.

The problem with including the +1 on numbers routinely given out in the
U.S. is that the U.S. callers, by and large, are much more unfamiliar
with international dialing than European callers who use it quite
a bit more routinely (natural given the relatively small sizes of the
countries involved in many cases).  In the U.S., adding the +1 would 
tend to confuse most people who never have, and never will, make
an international call, since some people WOULD tend to confuse it
with the "dial 1 first" code needed for DDD access in most cities
here.

By the way, just as an experiment, I tried to see if my local 
Pacific Bell operator knew what the country code for the U.S.
was.  They couldn't even understand what I was talking about.
They said, "Call your business office, it might be different for
each country trying to call you..."  I then tried the same thing
on one of my General Telephone lines.  This operator also made the
same claim, but after calling two supervisors, NYC, and two inward
operators in Great Britain, finally got somebody to say that the
country code was "probably" 1.  So as you can see, it's pretty
confused.

--Lauren--