Talk:020

message: I'm slightly confused about the area code for Bexley. I live in Bexley and my phone number starts with 01322 but the one in the table is 01332. I think my exchange is Slade Green whereas the one in the table is Dartford. Would someone be able to clear up my confusion and add any findings to  the article. Diddy Didds 16:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are of course correct. The code should read 01322. The main exchange for that code is Dartford. MRSC 14:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  01332 is the STD code for Derby isn't it? :) Neilius 15:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bexley Area Codes

message: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/lonareacod/ex.pdf
Here is a map of the 020 code area. Notice the blatant fudge of the 0171 area so Canary Wharf and LCY get vanity central numbers. I wonder if anyone can convert into a useful map for use on here? MRSC 18:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: I want to rename this article as STD code is an obsolete term. I'm thinking maybe UK dial code 020. Any other suggestions? MRSC • Talk 16:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This should be "020 (UK dialling code)". "Dial code" is not used so much in the UK. (This v. this) EuroSong talk 19:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Heck with it, I've been bold and gone ahead with it. EuroSong talk 23:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As you can see it has since been renamed back to just '020' and the other UK articles like 01207, 0114, etc, have also been similarly altered some time in the last few months, and at different times. (79.73.158.133 (talk) 21:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rename

message: I know what ABBey 1234 (020 7222 1234) is: the London Transport information service.  But WIMbledon 1234? Could there be a better example? And in any case, most of the London exchanges (but not these two) changed in the 1960s.--Rumping (talk) 01:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: ABBey and WIMbledon examples

message: I can see here when the 01 prefix ("If you're outside London!") ended; in 1990 - and I remember it well, but when did it start??  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trotboy (talk • contribs) 22:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom. It was introduced with Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) in 1958. Sauce for this is this article. Stannered (talk) 23:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that Ketchup or HP? EuroSong talk 08:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  01 Code start date? 

message: I'm fairly confident that London all-figure numbering came in in 1969, not 1966, which I believe was the debut of subscriber trunk dialling, which originally used letters, too. My aunt was 0ES5 3019. As I understand it the problems with letters were:
The letters on UK dials were mapped differently to numbers than those abroad (principally USA, I think) and it would cause problems with international direct dialling. (Today's mapping of letters to numbers is not the same as we had in the UK up to the 1960s).
The figure 1 was not mapped to any letters, so could not be used.
Some combinations of numbers did not spell out anything pronouncable - so 777 (P, R, S) couldn't be used.
When the lettering system was dropped, people's phone numbers didn't change to the corresponding numbers - eg RIPpleway (Barking) did not become 747, but 594. The reason for this was sectorisation. The east sector (for example) with its Sector Switching Centre in Ilford had all the 3 digit codes starting 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 59 and 98. This was presumably so that the system only had to process up to that second digit to route the call to the relevant sector. In east sector this meant exchanges like LOUghton and LEYtonstone could carry on as 508 and 539 respectively. I assume the 2 digit codes were chosen to minimise the quantity of number changes
It's interesting to note that sectorisation made "pseudo area codes" a bit like 0207 and 0208. They could theoretically have made (for example) the 0147 an area code for east London and only expected people to dial the final 5 digits if they were also under 0147, but it would have been dreadfully confusing to have 8 area codes for east London! to the Ad
Also of course we had local codes from London (01) adjacent charge group. This saved on processing area codes at bigger switching centres. If the exchange in the ACG had 5 digit numbers (eg Romford for the most part) they just stuck a two digit code in front of it to make 7 digits so it looked like a local 01 number. Very clever.
I can remember RO(70)mford, and Hornchurch (HX=49) and I think Upminster was 86.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cardinal 1962 (talk • contribs) 17:24, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: *It is a leading zero, not a trailing zero*
I see an issue with adding the trailing zero in front of these numbers (020 instead of 20 for example).
This zero is the trailing number used to identify a distance call within the country/region where the dialler is located. For example, within the UK I would dial 020 XYYY YYYY to reach a number in London. However if I am dialling from abroad to a number in the UK, I would have to remove the trailing zero (+44 20 XYYY YYYY). This is because UK adopts an open dialing plan.
Therefore the zero is not really a constant in the phone numbers, but a preceding "code" for the PSTN  to understand what I am trying to reach. In fact, when dialing a number in London from London itself, we don't need to add the 020, just the remaining bits of the number. One might assume that it is implicit that the zero might be optional but that is an incorrect assumption, since there are regions in the world where the trailing digit (in this case, zero), is used REGARDLESS is the number is being dialled locally or from abroad. Examples include Italy and Belgium (which are in a Closed Dialling Plan). For more information see Area code. --Pinnecco (talk) 19:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issue with the trailing zero 

message: Just a note the source cited uses "radiated from" to make clear it is segments from the centre, not surrounding circles (like the travelcard zones). MRSC (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Sectors

message: Do we have any other sources beside Ofcom for the code capacities? MRSC (talk) 16:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Capacities

message: Article doesn't say what determined the size on the ground of the London Telephone Area. It is bigger than the London Postal Area. I wonder if it is connected with the planned but never implemented version of the latter? see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_postal_area#Origins  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.7.53.2 (talk) 22:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coverage 

message: टेनशेन 2409:4042:2D85:13FE:0:0:A9C9:AB0D (talk) 08:36, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  हिंदी 

message: 1277741...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.211.251.230 (talk) 01:47, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:   Kanithan ..... social science 

message: :
In NANPA no number can begin with 0 or 1, so eight digits would give at most 80 million numbers.  Not so in London? —Tamfang (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  capacity 

message: Why is there is map indicating the location of Tristan De Cunha in the coverage section? 12.247.251.114 (talk) 20:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I searched the article for the string Tristan and found this at the end of the top section:  Perhaps that explains it. —Tamfang (talk) 05:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tristan De Cunha map relevance?