Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cheviot.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cheviot!robert From: robert@cheviot.UUCP (Robert Stroud) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: Phone Numbers Message-ID: <205@cheviot.UUCP> Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 14:28:22 EST Article-I.D.: cheviot.205 Posted: Tue Jan 8 14:28:22 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Jan-85 07:06:48 EST Reply-To: robert@cheviot.UUCP (Robert Stroud) Organization: U. of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. Lines: 24Lindsay suggests that you think of +44 as being a pathname relative to a world root. I like to think of the "+" as being whatever magic sequence you dial to get onto the international telephone network in the particular country you're dialling from, (just as you dial some magic sequence to get long distance). Once you are onto this network, what you dial (including the 44 which happens to be the country code for the UK) should be the same WHEREVER you are. This of course is the whole point of the convention. In the UK "+" is 010, in the US it is 011. In France it is 19 (I think). Again, in the UK the long distance sequence is 0, in the States it is 1 and in France it is 18 (this one I'm not sure about but you should get the idea). I have used this method to dial between various countries round Europe from phone boxes whose instructions were in a language I couldn't understand on several occasions. I have dialled the States in this way as well, but when I was in California recently and tried to dial England, I was rather surprised to discover I had to go through the operator, (and I always thought you guys had the best telephone system in the world :-)! Robert Stroud Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne