weird geekout of the day
Nov. 27th, 2007 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Our number is, for the first seven digits, identical to that of the Better Business Bureau. So, below, the digits bolded are our phone number, while the unbolded digits, including the 1, are the toll-free line for the Better Business Bureau.
1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx
So we get a lot of calls that go like this.
*ring*
*ring*
Me, usually blearily: "Hello?"
Caller, invariably with smug, righteous indignation: "Is this the Better Business Bureau?"
Me: "No, you need to dial 1 before a long-distance number. This is a private residence."
Caller, audibly deflated: "Oh."
I mean a lot of calls. Given that we don't use the landline except to have access to a DSL line, it's pretty much all of them.
Anyhow. So this led to me learning this little tid-bit.
Did you know that it is not necessary to dial 1 before the area code of a call on a cellphone?
True.
Cellphone switches receive the entire number as one chunk of input. You know as you type in the number, how most phones put in hyphens and as you keep typing, put the hypens into the proper place? They're parsing the input before they send it to the switch. Then you hit "send" and it sends it all together.
Landline switches don't work that way. They route the call in realtime, as they get each number. So they will have finished routing the call before you're finished dialing, if you're intending to use a long-distance area code that is also a local exchange in your local area code. (Hence, me and the BBB. My local exchange, within my local area code, is also their area code-- it's a toll-free area code, but one of the more recent ones, not 800.)
Have you ever been on an internal network that you had to dial 9 to call out of? The dialtone changes audibly after you hit the 9. It's already started routing your call.
It needs a 1 before the area code so that it knows to treat the next string as an area code, rather than a local exchange.
The 1 didn't used to be crucial because there are no local exchanges using 800. It used to be reserved for toll-free numbers. But as more lines have come into existence, it's no longer possible to reserve certain strings of numbers for special purposes. The only one officially remaining is 911.
Anyhow, there's your random geekery for the day. That is the factoid I learned today.
1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx
So we get a lot of calls that go like this.
*ring*
*ring*
Me, usually blearily: "Hello?"
Caller, invariably with smug, righteous indignation: "Is this the Better Business Bureau?"
Me: "No, you need to dial 1 before a long-distance number. This is a private residence."
Caller, audibly deflated: "Oh."
I mean a lot of calls. Given that we don't use the landline except to have access to a DSL line, it's pretty much all of them.
Anyhow. So this led to me learning this little tid-bit.
Did you know that it is not necessary to dial 1 before the area code of a call on a cellphone?
True.
Cellphone switches receive the entire number as one chunk of input. You know as you type in the number, how most phones put in hyphens and as you keep typing, put the hypens into the proper place? They're parsing the input before they send it to the switch. Then you hit "send" and it sends it all together.
Landline switches don't work that way. They route the call in realtime, as they get each number. So they will have finished routing the call before you're finished dialing, if you're intending to use a long-distance area code that is also a local exchange in your local area code. (Hence, me and the BBB. My local exchange, within my local area code, is also their area code-- it's a toll-free area code, but one of the more recent ones, not 800.)
Have you ever been on an internal network that you had to dial 9 to call out of? The dialtone changes audibly after you hit the 9. It's already started routing your call.
It needs a 1 before the area code so that it knows to treat the next string as an area code, rather than a local exchange.
The 1 didn't used to be crucial because there are no local exchanges using 800. It used to be reserved for toll-free numbers. But as more lines have come into existence, it's no longer possible to reserve certain strings of numbers for special purposes. The only one officially remaining is 911.
Anyhow, there's your random geekery for the day. That is the factoid I learned today.
