Steel Beams

[John Williamson]

I've had London numbers quoted to me in all three ways over the phone recently.

020 xxxx xxxx, 020x xxx xxxx and even (rarely) 020xx xxx xxx.

I live in the 01782 area. To speak to someone in that area, I dial XXXXXX. Someone in the 02088 area would dial XXXXXX to speak to someone in that number set. To talk to someone in the 02087 number set, they dial the whole number, the way I would dial 01785XXXXXX to speak to someone in that area, who may be physically closer to me than two

0208xxxxxxxx series numbers are to each other. As you say, it's a choice that BT made. Personally, I think it's not a sensible choice. It appears that, not for the first time, I am alone in this.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not quite. You could only dial without a prefix in your own area - ie 081 or 071.

[funkyoldcortina]

Wrong.

Ofcom decide number allocations, not BT.

0171 and 0181 were running out of numbers to allocate.

So they switched from a 7 digit local part to an 8 digit local part. 0171 numbers had a 7 put on the front, 0181 numbers had an 8 put on the front.

Both area codes were replaced with 020. There are now 020 3xxx xxxx numbers which can be in either the old 0171 or 0181 areas. The whole point is to give the area one dialling code, not lots as you seem to prefer.

[funkyoldcortina]

There is no dialling code for outer London.

The dialling code for London is 020, wherever in London you are

[The Other Mike]

But given the chance some joker will commission a signwriter / printer to quote their number as 0208 3xxx xxx or 0207 3xx xxxx

It happens a lot in the areas that got the 011x codes, all of them replaced the old four digit code with a completely new four digit code and put one extra digit on the front of the old 'local' number, sometimes that number was the last digit of the old four digit code.

Rather than quoting 011x zyyyyyy as the number they routinely used

011xz yyyyyy

Works fine dialling the old digits until z is not a single defined digit throughout the area.

Luckily mobiles have forced many to routinely dial the whole number because they haven't got a f*cking clue about what bit is local and what bit is the area code.

[Skipweasel]

No they don't. They have to have the 8 on the front. For example, our old number in Hounslow was 572-8204. Our neighbours used to be able to dial that. However, when the numbers changed they had to dial 8572-8204 or not get through.

[John Williamson]

I know that's what happens, it's just not consistent with what happens anywhere else in the UK as far as I'm aware.

[Steve Walker]

Ah yes. Remember the days when all phone-ins to BBC programmes were on

01-811-8055 ?

No, there are lots of places with a different split. Manchester is 0161 xxx xxxx - which is logical as the 0161 gives Manchester and the xxx gives the local exchange, although many have multiple exchange numbers (ours has at least 747, 748 and 749). Before they slipped the extra 1 in and we still had 061 xxx xxxx, I remember reading that the 3, 3, 4 arrangement was tried and tested as the most memorable arrangement.

SteveW

[ARWadsworth]

Swap shop?

Next you will be mentioning yellow BT vans:-)

[Terry Casey]

Your awareness obviously doesn't extend very far then ...

020 London 023 Southampton and Portsmouth 024 Coventry 028 Northern Ireland 029 Cardiff

Note, in particular, that 028 covers ALL of Northern Ireland, replacing many individual codes.

[Frank Erskine]

Green GPO vans...

[Skipweasel]

With rubber front wings.

[Steve Walker]

Indeed, that's were it first became etched into my brain, but the same number was used for all sorts of programmes - not that that many had phone-ins back then!

[Roger Mills]

Yes, I remember those! They were the van version of the Morris 8 Series E, similar to

't remember whether any of the later Moggy Minor ones also had rubber wings].

[Skipweasel]

Don't think so, but I have to change a start-switch on a Moggie in the near future - not a job I'm looking forward too, I'm far too big to get in the space required.

[Huge]

Yes they did.

[Andrew May]

You missed a bit. Wasn't it:

01-(if you are outside London)-811-8055?

Andrew

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup. They also specified the old Austin 803cc engine for their Minors after others got the '1000' 948cc one. Presumably to stop them getting to a call out too fast.