Talk:Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom/Archive 1

message: I've shuffled the 08xx codes section around a bit, but there are still some discrepancies, as listed at Ofcom's Numbering Scheme page. Would it be better to incorporate this information fully, or leave a link to Ofcom's official list?  I'll leave it alone for now. Sargant 01:01, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: 08xx codes

message: (Adapted from an email sent to Hull Corporation Telephone Department). I had a good laugh at your National Numbering Groups List.  Someone in your company has had great fun thinking up new names for some of the groups, for example Stonehenge instead of Amesbury.  I am all in favour of a bit of individuality but I would count the following as errors: 
* 1327 Northamptonshire is too vague - call it Daventry 
* 1381 Cromarty is spelled wrong 
* 1389 Dumbartonshire is too vague - call it Dumbarton (plus, the county name is Dunbartonshire)
* 1400 Loveden (Lincs) is spelled wrong, was never an exchange name and is not a village name - call it Honington
* 1451 Cotswold is spelled wrong and also too vague - call it Stow-on-the-Wold 
* 1725 Downton (Wilts) is spelled wrong and needs county name - call it Rockbourne
* 1889 Rocester is spelled wrong and could be confused with the Medway town - call it Dapple Heath or Rugeley
But by all means keep bonny Udny instead of Old Meldrum and many other similar variations from Ofcom's list of NNG names (on Page 16 of a large PDF) - I hesitate to call it the official list.  There is also a very nice Charge Groups Map which uses the original GPO names, eg. 1354 variously called Doddington (GPO list), Chatteris (Ofcom list) or March (Cambs) (Hull list).
RHaworth 03:04, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)
Both the above links are now unavailable Sfgreenwood 13:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 1889 is obviously 1UT9 - Uttoxeter. 82.36.26.229 03:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hull does it different

message: I'm not sure that it's helpful to describe (01xxx) as the "most common" format. It implies that the greatest number of subscriber-numbers have such codes, and that may well not be the case, not least because many of the other code-types cover cities. Also, I believe there are still some five-digit subscriber numbers. -- Pauldanon (talk) 11:27, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I read recently that more numbers are now (02x) xxxx xxxx in the UK than any other format. I can't remember where I read this though but it's hardly suprising given the major population centres covered. There are of course more codes of 01xxx which would give one the false idea that this is the most common number format - combined with the fact mobiles also follow that format. MRSC 14:33, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And here it is from Ofcom website  "Since the code and number changes in the year 2000, most numbers in the UK have a 3-digit code beginning ‘02X' followed by an 8-digit local number eg ‘020' for London, ‘028' for Northern Ireland, etc." MRSC 06:34, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The number guide has moved to  -- 212.139.101.57 (talk) 22:28, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most common formats 

message: Is there a role for some rules for geographical numbers and codes? For example:
* numbers are five, six, seven or eight digits long
* five- and six-digit numbers have no spaces in them
* seven-digit numbers are arranged xxx xxxx
* eight-digit numbers are arranged xxxx xxxx
* 01 codes are four or five digits long
* four-digit 01 codes are 01x1 or 011x
* 02 codes are three digits long
* numbers with four-digit codes have seven digits
* numbers with five-digit codes have five or six digits
* numbers with 02 codes have eight digits.
Is there a role for an illustration of the only acceptable numbers, i.e.:
* (01xxx) xxxxx
* (01xxx) xxxxxx
* (01x1) xxx xxxx
* (011x) xxx xxxx
* (02x) xxxx xxxx?
I'd suggest the above simple list clarifies an apparently complex situation and might just help stop the wide range of liberties taken. It's important to get across that the only proper punctuation is parentheses (no hyphens) and that spaces matter.
--Pauldanon 11:43, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You have missed out (01xxxx) xxxxx and (01xxxx) xxxx. Also all-figure numbers (in director areas such as Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester) are allowed to be shown in the traditional all-figure format: 01x1-xxx xxxx. But this doesn't apply to London (since 020 came into effect) and Tyneside, Wearside & Durham (0191 was never an all-figure area). Rapido 16:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

text: The second space is far less important to get right than the first because it says nothing about how the number is dialed. I'm not sure if it actually has a consistant meaning or not regarding how numbers are allocated and where they are portable to though. Plugwash 02:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is a second space, it is traditional for it to be placed immediately before the fourth digit from the end of the number. That's probably because numbers are traditionally allocated in blocks of 10 000 (though smaller allocations are now in force in some areas).(79.65.158.123 (talk) 23:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formats 

message: I notice that many SMS services use "short codes"; are these allocated by mobile providers, or some other organization, and are they part of some official numbering scheme? -- 80.168.224.34 (talk) 09:00, 17 March 2005‎(UTC)
:The Mobile Data Association (http://www.mda-mobiledata.org/mda/) have a good section on short codes (http://www.text.it/business/default.asp?intPageID=383) Owain 11:32, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short codes for mobile SMS 

message: It is likely that the entire country will receive 02x numbers. This is my own theory (numbers spiralling clockwise through England): 020 London and East of England, 021 East Midlands, 022 Southwest England, 023 Southeast England, 024 West Midlands, 025 Yorkshire and the Humber, 026 Northwest England, 027 Northeast England, 028 Northern Ireland, 029 Wales - all phone codes straddling borders will take the number from the region in which the largest settlement stands. Scotland I give 030 (02* and 02# may not work on some mobile phones). Other phone codes will be written in the format (0xx) xxxx xxxx - this works surprisingly well, especially on mobiles, divided into 077, 078 and 079. -- 195.92.198.74 (talk) 20:02, 29 April 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved this from the main page as it is discussion. It is true that when 01xxx or 01xx area codes run out of numbers they will become an 02x code or be made part of a suitable adjacent 02x area code. This is on the OFCOM website somewhere I beleive. It will take ages to implement as they are not allowed to change numbers just so it fits in to a nice pattern, rather they have to wait until there is a genuine number shortage. If I find the source I will put something in the article regarding this. MRSC 20:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like speculation to me. And my hypothesis is that 021 is being left deliberately vacant until Birmingham runs out of numbers. 82.36.26.229 00:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ofcom's site also confirms that 03x will be used for national geographic numbers charged at normal landline rates - this is also pointed out in the main article.  Dmccormac 20:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved from main page

message: Someone messed up all the formatting for London numbers (again). There is only ONE code for London, and it is 020. Not 0207, not 0208, not 0203. See the Ofcom FAQ at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/lonareacod/faqlondon.pdf . Formatting as , e.g. 0207 xxx xxxx is confusing because it implies that you can dial the local number xxx xxxx within London, which you can't, because London phone numbers are 8 digits long. -- 143.252.80.110 (talk) 15:40, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This also happens to ranges of VOIP numbers that start 05*. Many switchboards are coded to only allow 01* and 02* etc. MRSC 11:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: so how *are* people supposed to configure thier switchboard so they don't get nasty surprises on the phone bill other than by whitelisting prefixes they know thier carrier will charge them a reasonable rate for? Plugwash 02:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Switchboards are just computers and they can be programmed to permit or restrict access to any number the service manager wishes. For example, at my office the only DQ service that is permitted is 118425 as it happens to be owned by the service provider! Dmccormac 20:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The call return service on some networks still has bugs in reading out such numbers.  Talk Talk's is even weirder: I recently caught it giving "02072" before the first pause. -- Smjg (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  020 for London 

message: this sections gives one date for each change, at least for "phone day" and presumablly for the others i belive thier should be two dates. One where the new started working and one where the old stopped working! Plugwash 01:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree. What were the dates though? (79.73.133.199 (talk) 15:44, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: For the "PhONEday" change, the period of permissive dialing (i.e. where you could dial using either the existing code or the new code with the "1" inserted) started in August 1994.  The 16 April 1995 date is when the old codes were withdrawn, making use of the new 01... codes mandatory.  Although that was the assigned "official" day (it was an Easter Sunday), it reality it's possible that the old codes did continue to be usuable in some places for little longer.  87.112.140.58 (talk) 21:34, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  dates in number shortage section 

message: does anyone know where this info can be found? Plugwash 20:46, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  utilisation of current area codes 

message: and if so is it an officially supported feature or just something done by some networks to help roaming americans? Plugwash 01:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No it doesn't. The supported emergency numbers are 999 and 112. -- Arwel (talk) 02:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  does 911 really work on uk mobile phones 

message: i seem to remember hearing from an ISP that a freephone number (i think it was an 0500 one) was going to cost national rate to call from then on (and giving a new freephone number). anyone else heared anything similar? Plugwash 20:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: News to me. Ofcom's site (sorry don't have the link now) says that 0500 xxx xxx  is free to the caller, but no new numbers would be issued after PhOneDay and they will eventually be phased out. Dmccormac 20:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  freephone 

message: Does anybody else write it as "PhONE Day"?  The logo was in all caps, and with the "ONE" bit on a coloured background and at an angle to make it stand out.  Most webpages write it as "PhONEday", and in my piece I have it as "phONEday" as this effectively matches the pattern of the logo. -- Smjg 14:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caps/space in "PhONE Day" 

message: The article includes
 The prefixes for existing numbers in Northern Ireland are split up into 7 groups,
 roughly based upon the county in which the main exchange is based. The initial digit
 of each phone number is based on the designated county - for example, the first county
 alphabetically is County Antrim so numbers in this county start 2.
That may be true for the examples given but it's not true in general.  Antrim town itself mostly has numbers starting 94 and many Newry numbers start 30.  If there is any logic behind the allocation of numbers, it would be good to include it but otherwise we should just delete this bit.  --Cavrdg 06:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the table on Big Number Change. The "Greater Belfast" area numbers all begin wih 9x. Other than that the pattern seems to fit pretty well. Owain (talk) 18:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northern Ireland numbering by county 

message: ""I'm sure that people will realise those ranges are in use if they aren't present"" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Telephone_numbers_in_the_United_Kingdom&diff=prev&oldid=170064220 using TW. JGXenite 2007-11-08 09:13 (UTC)
:Why would they assume that? Would they not think that codes such as 01125 or 01197 or 01113 might exist as those longer codes?  Anon 2007-11-11 19:40 (UTC)
::Ranges such as 0111 are no doubt deliberately kept out to stop confusion (is that 01113 or 0113?) In my opinion, there is no need to include ranges that are not in used - I think it causes clutter and confusion to the casual reader. ~~ [Jam][talk] 20:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing Codes 

message: Interesting how 0003 and 0008 were left unused - the obvious conclusion to jump to is that these were provision for Belfast and Londonderry/Derry in case of Northern Ireland being ceded to the RoI. Is there any evidence for this, or is it just a coincidence? 82.36.26.229 00:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RoI 000x codes 

message: Bit of confusion here - at one point it says 023 is a two digit code as the 0 is just a marker for long distances, then about 3 lines further down it says 0161 is a four digit code, and 01482 is a 5 digit code. Anyone with slightly more knowledge than me (not hard...) want to clarify/change things? Petsco (talk) 10:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, the joy of the UK telephone numbering system. 023, 0161 and 01482 are all "area codes" within the UK. All numbers within the UK start with a 0 (which is dropped if dialling from abroad), then either a three, four, five or six digit area code, followed by a eight, seven, six or five digit subscriber number (respective to the area code). It really depends on how big an area the code is covering (London obviously has more subscribers than Hull - hence London uses 020 and Hull uses 01482). Does that explain it better? ~~ [Jam][talk] 10:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, I realise that (i'm english after all). All i'm saying is the fact that 023 is down in the article as a 2 digit code (despite having three digits) whereas 0161 is down as a 4 digit code, and 01482 is down as a 5 digit code... there's just an inconsistency in the article. Petsco (talk) 09:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, sorry! I misread your comment. I'll have a look and change it - it's probably a silly mistake that someone has entered by accident. ~~ [Jam][talk] 09:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

text:  I've removed the "general format" section as it was unsourced and didn't make sense to me. ~~ [Jam][talk] 09:59, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "No, I realise that (i'm english after all). All i'm saying is the fact that 023 is down in the article as a 2 digit code (despite having three digits) whereas 0161 is down as a 4 digit code, and 01482 is down as a 5 digit code" <-- it's easy to get confused, technically 23 is a two digit code, 161 is a three digit code. While the zero is usually written with the area code it is not actually part of it. Unfortunately it seems someone has been through the whole article "correcting" it to the assumuption that the zero is part of the area code. This could do with fixing but I'm not in the mood at the moment. -- Plugwash (talk) 03:50, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I can tell, the "2 digit" area code mistake has been corrected. I think it just needs clarifying that, from inside the UK, you need the 0, whereas this is replaced with 00/+ 44 when dialling from outside the UK. ~~ [ジャム][talk] 08:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's no mistake, 020 *is* a two-digit area code. It is the others that were wrong. 0121 is a three-digit area code. (79.73.128.99 (talk) 14:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbering 

message: Whoever the author is, thanks for putting Brampton in there! :)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.36.95 (talk) 19:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brampton 

message: What are these "Freephone, Local Rate, Premium Rate Services" that had codes beginning 01 in the 1990s?
Between London relinquishing the code and PhONEday, the only thing AFAIK to begin with 01 is the international dialling prefix, 010 before 00 replaced it.  Which I guess counts as geographic ISFA the digits following it identify the country, although the particular number within the target country's numbering system may be geographic or non-geographic.
Just checking before correcting the info here.... -- Smjg (talk) 20:34, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  01* non-geographic before PD? 

message: It says in sec "Introduction of area codes" that these were "temporarily" added for London. In one sense this is of course correct (in the sense that most of the numbers are temporary!) but they were around for quite a while. Would another word, e.g. "much later", "eventually", be better, or just "allocated to London until subsequent changes" or something like that? SimonTrew (talk) 06:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "temporarily" added 071 and 081 for London 

message: I'd like to say that BT recently fixed their area code list, but in reality they just messed it up again...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eurosong/02x#BT_fixes_it._Or_do_they.3F (90.193.31.222 (talk) 02:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  BT fixed their area code list. Or did they? 

message: Just wanted to say that these formats are absurdly confusing, but the Wikipedia article was clear enough for a dumb 'murrican like me to get a mobile number formatted correctly on the first try.  Great job, guys! -- Avocado (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow. 

message: The UK has a large number of formats, and they apply to very specific prefixes. As noted by one satisfied customer above, it's complicated. I put it to you that almost no-one would go through the entire article trying to compile a full list of formats, but would take great joy in seeing the simple table at the head of the article laying out the main points. Are you aware how much software out there was incorrectly programmed when the old list, several years ago, just listed a few formats. People in a hurry assumed the simple list was all of the formats and read no further, such as here: http://drupalcode.org/project/cck_phone.git/blob/HEAD:/includes/phone.gb.inc and here: http://drupalcode.org/project/phone.git/blob/HEAD:/phone.gb.inc and very many other places. The full list is still only a summary of the formats, and makes no mention of the purpose and usage for which the full article has to be read. 80.42.230.15 (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the best thing to do is remove it from the infobox and put it in the body of the article. It can also be formatted a little better. The infobox should only show summary information. "Typical format" should be ythat, and not an exhaustive list. MRSC (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The iPhone formats telephone numbers on screen as they are dialled. Looking at iOS 6 it is clear that the list here at wikipedia was used to program this function. Earlier versions of iOS omitted several of the formats that were not listed here at that time, a time when the list here was incomplete. 212.139.107.232 (talk) 16:19, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no problem with this information being in the article and it should. However, it deserves space to be formatted and explained properly. MRSC (talk) 16:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The case for presenting a proper list of formats.