Talk:UK telephone code misconceptions/Archive 1

Archive 1

Merge?

Shouldn't this be merged with UK telephone numbering plan? It seems to repeat a lot of information in there. Fagstein 18:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I thought about that.. but decided that a clearer and more precise explanation may be desirable. This article is specifically about how the misquoting is perpetuated, and includes the history and reasons behind it. The Numbering Plan article is not about the misquotions - it deals with the actual plan itself. You are perfectly right: a lot of the information is repeated. However, I thought it would not be good style just to explain how the numbers should be quoted, and then put a link to the Numbering Plan atricle saying "click here to see the history".

If this detailed explanation were merged into the main Numbering Plan article, it would go quite off-topic, so so to say. Therefore I decided to make a separate page. Hope this answers your query. Eurosong 18:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I might still remove some background on how the system works and just focus on the misquotations and why/how they happen. Fagstein 20:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you think it's possible to explain why and how the misquotations happen, without explaining how the numbering system evolved? Sure, give it a go if you want... ;) Eurosong 20:29, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

To avoid fragmentation of discussion, please contribute to Talk:Big Number Change#Proposed merge of 0207 & 0208 into Big Number Change where relevant, rather than here.

Changeover period

I like this article. It might be worth mentioning that for a brief period during the changeover (I forget how long but maybe as much as a year) it was possible to dial full length 020 xxxx xxxx numbers within London but you could not dial eight digit local numbers (but you could seven). This was the bit that got communicated badly and some people assumed from that the codes were migrated 0171 > 0207 etc. as that was their experience of it. And during this time a lot of the corporate stationary and signage was redone. I was working as a marketing exec at this time and had to get stuff reprinted, the information I was given by the facilities management staff was that the code was changing to 0207 - luckily I ignored them and researched myself but others were mistaken.

Also need to mention that 020 7xxx xxxx and 020 8xxx xxxx are re-used anywhere in the 020 area. Could also mention that 020 7... ran out but 020 8... still had numbers left but they decided to start issue only 020 3... numbers to try and avoid any more confusion. MRSC 21:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Also the 020 3xxx xxxx blocks are the only 'new' numbers being issued to telecoms providers but they are able to re-use any 7xxx xxxx and 8xxx xxxx numbers they have so it is not technically true that "only 020 3xxx xxxx numbers are being issued". MRSC 21:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest, Mrsteviec :) Do you want to have a go at explaining what you said above, or shall I? I fixed your typo btw.. hehe. Eurosong 21:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

According to this [1] it was 1 June 1999 to 22 April 2000 that it was possible to use 020 xxxx xxxx numbers but only the the old seven digit local numbers worked giving one the experience/impression that the number was either 0207 222 1234 or 222 1234 - and the mess began! Please incorporate as you think best. MRSC 21:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Thank you for providing those dates. Eurosong 22:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That's great. The media do nothing to help the problem - do a google for "0203 London" and see the results - [2] - this is from the Times! MRSC

That Times article is truly scary. Do authors not research anything these days? Eurosong 23:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

You can see why some newspapers get it wrong. Their journalists are told to do it the wrong way... http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=70391&id=100000179702430

How many others have those same rules in place? (79.73.229.141 (talk) 16:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC))

Merge?

I very much like this article (and the external one here which, yes, should be linked. I strongly disagree with the idea (months ago) of merging it with the numbering plan one - I feel that is a terrible idea when this is quite different and highly specialized. It is important that this continues to have its own separate existence where this very particular issue is explained. I do have a very strong urge when misguided people claim their number is, say, 0207 222 1234, to rush up to them screaming, "show me the magic phone on which you can dial seven-figure local London numbers!", as I suspect that they cannot, as they don't own one. :) 138.37.199.199 16:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

To avoid fragmentation of discussion, please contribute to Talk:Big Number Change#Proposed merge of 0207 & 0208 into Big Number Change where relevant, rather than here.

Has anyone seen a news article about the stupidity?

The only thing I've managed to find is this archived Guardian article from just before the old codes were withdrawn. It's long past time the papers, along with news services on other media, got their act together and shamed the people properly.

And even the Guardian has been getting it wrong on and off, at least on the Notes & Queries page. I haven't seen today's yet, but it's been wrong, right, wrong, right and then wrong again all since the Berliner switch. Does anybody have the slightest idea what's going on here?

And here's my piece on the whole issue. -- Smjg 13:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thinking about it, I'm wondering how much of what I've written it would make sense to incorporate into this article, or whether to add a link to it. Thinking about the external links policy here.... -- Smjg 13:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Forum-like posts moved to separate page

This is not a talk forum. --Cameron Scott (talk) 13:04, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but can you point us at a better place to which to take this whole discussion? -- Smjg (talk) 14:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no maybe about it - we are not a talk forum - as for better places to take it - surely there are specialist forums for this sort of stuff? --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cameron: this is a talk page about how to improve the article - not a general forum to discuss the 02x problem. I therefore invite people to submit any further comments at my talk sub page: User_talk:Eurosong/02x. EuroSong ^talk 19:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Anyone know why?

Why London numbers weren't just extended to begin with. Especially as they had a shorter area code than anyone else.

I see three possibilities

1: the switching tech at the time couldn't cope with it. 2: noone thought of it at the time. 3: they were alreading thinking about freeing up 01 for insertion into other area codes?

anyone know which if any of theese explanations are correct? Plugwash 13:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It's 3. They needed to move London OUT of 01 in order to free up the 01 to add into everyone's (geographical) numbers, hence making all numbers longer and getting another billion or grillion or squillion or whatever. So first they moved London into 071 and 081 and for a while nothing began 01. Then they moved lots of geog numbers into 01 including London so we became 0171 and 0181 and 0665 became 01665 and so on, freeing up ALL the ranges 02-09 (with some exceptions) because all the stuff previously spread out there was now in 01. Then it was possible to populate those "new" ranges with 02 for extra geog numbers, 07 for mobiles; whatever. (Remember that before this mobile devices were all over the place on 0836 or whatever - there was no consistent "07" like now.) And so London (along with a few other places) ended up in 02 where there was a LOT more room than in the former ranges. There is, or was, quite a lot of good stuff on the net about this, how the decisions were made, the logic of the numbering plan etc. Cynics will of course ask when we will NEXT have to renumber everything! There will never be a time when some adjustments do not need to be made, but the most recent changes did produce so many new numbers that another total revision should be a very long way off. And maybe by then technology will have moved on to the point where we don't use phone numbers in this way any more ... :) 138.37.199.199 16:41, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It was 2 and 3. Properly planned, there could just have been two changes in London, but those dealing with London's capacity problem started earlier and did not co-ordinate with the national number changes until it was too late. --Henrygb 20:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe life would have been simpler if the 0171 / 0181 step could have been missed out?

That would have meant PhONEday (when all non-geographic area codes had a 1 added to them) would have had to have applied to all non-geographical numbers except London (i.e. leaving them as 071 and 081 for a few more years, then directly changing to 020).

How confusing would that have been, when 07 was about to be used for mobiles and 08 for non-geographic numbers? :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.73.128.99 (talk) 13:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, which is why the long comment "It's 3" above is correct. They had to do it in stages. Miss one out and you confuse millions - it's bad enough how it is but could have been much much worse. DBaK (talk) 14:56, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Surgery

I've performed radical surgery on the article. This was frankly appalling before - it was a long rant (polemic if I'm feeling charitable) about a relatively trivial usage error. I've now cut it down to an appropriate size, whilst still keeping the essential points. I've also moved the page to be about the code itself. We could perhaps have more information about the code - it would be good to outline how far 020 extends out from Charing Cross. I see Dartford, Staines, Watford, Slough, and Esher all have separate prefixes. Morwen - Talk 13:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

A few years back, I might have agreed (for mis-formatted numbers in general) that 'it's a bit trivial' as the only problem it caused was confusing people as to exactly what needed to be dialled for a local call. If they dialled too few digits then the call simply failed. However, now that new number ranges have come into use in all of the 011x and 02x areas in recent years, there's an additional problem. People are looking at (for example) a Sheffield 3xx xxxx number (real area code (0114) of course) and either prefixing the local number with a spurious '2' or replacing the initial '3' of the local number with a '2' and hence mis-dialling the number and being connected to the wrong person. In London, people with an (020) 3xxx xxxx number report that people often quote it as 0207 3xxx xxxx and hence the mis-dial connects the caller to (020) 73xx xxxx (with the final dialled digit being discarded). So, nowadays this is not a trivial matter. People are being inconvenienced by unwanted incoming calls caused by people mis-dialling the newer numbers. (79.65.231.153 (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC))

There is an article about UK STD code 20, maybe this article could be merged into that? //74.56.91.108 06:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think probably not. There's certainly a case for putting something about 0207 & 0208 confusion into the UK STD code 20 article, but putting all of 0207 & 0208 into UK STD code 20 feels a bit inappropriate somehow.--A bit iffy 07:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

How big is the problem?

One thing the article doesn't (can't?) say is how big the problem is. Someone put in a para saying "it's still all over the pace on shopfronts and vans" (owtte) and it made me wonder just how deeply-rooted (routed, haha) it is? I think it's probably not unfair to guess that some quite large proportion of those editing this article have, like me, a bee in their bonnet about it. (Well, OK, to be honest it pretty much causes me physical pain!) But of course that perhaps just means that we are sensitized to it and so seem to see it everywhere! I wonder if there exist any stats, surveys etc which demonstrate something more concrete. You know, 50% of Londoners still say it wrong, 10% of commercially painted signs are wrong - whatever. I suggested can't as well as doesn't above because I do recognize that this data might be difficult or impossible to obtain, but it did make me think it would be interesting, if available, to include some indication. Like I say, my view - and maybe yours? - of how common it is is not likely to be all that NPOV nor totally encyclopaedic! :) 82.45.248.177 10:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

According to research by regulator Ofcom in February 2005, only 13% of respondents correctly identified, without prompting, the code for London to be 020 and 59% identified it as 0207 or 0208. [1]

You missed the opening paragraph. MRSC 08:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Blimey. Yes, I did, thank you. :) 82.45.248.177 17:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Last week I spotted a small-shop owner up a ladder painting the wooden fascia above their shop. Their phone number was shown using metallic digits screwed to it. It was 0181 xxx xxxx. There and then, I got them to remove the zero and the two '1's. It now reads right, but with a gap after the '8'. They have kept the zero and will get a '2' so they can put it completely right; and they'll need to move the 8 along. How easy was that?

In Northern Ireland, at the time of the swapover, only 3% correctly identified 028 as the new NI prefix! (79.73.135.8 (talk) 07:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC))

Cardiff

Re: Edit by Welshleprechaun. Do we really need a separate paragraph to talk about Cardiff here? Especially considering that it's most certainly no different from anywhere else affected by the BNC.

Moreover, claiming "all numbers within the Cardiff area code begin with 20" to be the motivation for this strikes me as nonsense. The problem is occurring in all the 02x codes, regardless of whether the areas in question have started allocating in the growing space that has been created. -- Smjg 19:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what the situation is like elsewhere, but the lack of allocation of new numbers following 029 is definitely having an impact here in Cardiff - I have to take down a lot of phone numbers from members of the public and I'd say something like 9 out of 10 Cardiff-based callers read out their number in the form "(02920) XXX XXX" rather than "(029) XXXX XXXX". It drives us just as crazy as Londoners, I guarantee you! 84.92.8.222 12:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The newer Cardiff numbers now use the 21xx xxxx range. Mis-dialling is now happening where people either prefix the new number with '20', or else they swap out the '21' they were told, for '20' that they think they know. These types of mis-dialled numbers connect to the wrong person, and inconvenience the person that was called. This is a change. In the past, most mis-dialling was caused by people not dialling enough digits. In those cases, the call failed because it was not connected at all. (79.65.231.153 (talk) 21:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC))

Other causes

I'm not sure how to word this for the article but is it possible that part of the problem stems from more and more people regarding the entire eleven digit sequence as a phone number? With the explosion of mobile phone usage, more and more people have to use the full number for "local" calls (and some, myself included, always use them on the rare occasions we use landlines for local calls because of habit) and so never actually find ourself dialling a 7 didget local number?

Also my recollection of the publicity is that it was badly handled. When I was young the Epsom area code changed with (03727) xxxxx numbers becoming (0372) 7xxxxx and all the information can I recall was very clear that "7" was moving from the area code to the phone number. But all the publicty (and media coverage) for the last two changes for London focused very much on "area codes are changing". Plus many smaller businesses didn't change their hoardings and vans overnight because of the cost and it was assumed that locals would be as frustrated with number changes as they were, so once more the change to the number itself wasn't very well communicated. Timrollpickering 12:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The recent rename

This article has just been renamed from 0207 and 0208 to Erroneous UK telephone codes. The explanation given: "The article has been expanded to include Coventry, Cardiff and Reading so the original title does not adequately describe the contents."

This is hardly more accurate. Nearly all of the article is still about two specific erroneous UK telephone codes: 0207 and 0208. Just about the only bits that aren't are the Similar errors with other area codes section and some of the external links.

If we're going to keep this new name, we should rewrite the page to redress the balance. -- Smjg 15:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

To me it seems like a fine name - 0207 and 0208 are just used as the major examples throughout the article. Naming it back to them would again push the Reading/Cardiff/Coventry stuff to the back, which is not good. Thus I'm afraid I disagree with the tag that was added today, and as such will be removing it. _TheIslander 21:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That you as an individual disagree with an opinion isn't a valid reason to remove a maintenance template. And that you disagree with which maintenance template has been added isn't a valid reason to leave it with none at all. Meanwhile, I've tagged it for cleanup. The structure and wording of the article still does push Reading/Cardiff/Coventry to the back, regardless of the title. -- Smjg 21:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

The article is clearly still about "0207" and "0208", with other codes as a small example at the end (and especially the lead is completely about the former). Title should've been left. But now it has been changed, the article should be rewritten so it's structured around general code changes (especially the lead). If "0207" and "0208" happens to be the large part of the focus, so be it, but at the mo the article is geared towards those two. Smoothy 21:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

To Smjg: that I as an individual disagree with an opinion is just as valid a reason for me removing a maintenance template as you as an individual feeling it needs the template is a reason for you to put it there in the first place. And yes, I should have left a cleanup template in it's place, but it as at this point that I'd appeciate it if you assumed a little good faith - sorry, I clean forgot. Please, tone down the attitude, and realise that, as a human, I'm just as prone to making mistakes as you.

Back to the subject in hand, I believe that this title should stay, but yes, it needs slight re-wording to reflect the title change. _TheIslander 21:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I have boldly re-written the opening paragraph for this, but left the tag on because I think more needs to be done to balance the article. MorganaFiolett 11:37, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

How to best re-write this article?

Since the rename, this article seems to be a bit of a mess. It's all very well to say that, since the confusion does not only apply to London, the article should be titled to cover all the codes and not just 0207/0208. However, the article is by far best written by example. It is necessary to narrate examples of codes and phone numbers in order to explain how the misquoting confusion came about. And in order to give examples, a particular area code must be chosen.

That means, therefore, the article will naturally be written as if it's just about the London codes - with the other misquoted codes mentioned as an afterthought. I personally don't especially see anything wrong with having it written as such - as long as it's clean up from its current dreadful state. However, it has been tagged as in need of a clean-up for the reason that the article's title does not entirely match its subject matter. Any comments? EuroSong ^talk 15:21, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Having just come across this article and read through it, I'd say it's pretty good. There could be some more information about the other codes but concentrating on London as a case study allows the reader to "get the point" without confusing them with too much information. -- DatRoot 00:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

A small point though, maybe the article could instead be named "Erroneous UK telephone area codes"? Or somehow include "area" in the title because I feel the phrase just "telephone codes" is a bit meaningless and confusing. -- DatRoot 00:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - glad you like my reworking :) Thanks also for your contribution - it does indeed make it clearer. With regards to your renaming suggestion, I don't really have any strong feelings one way or the other about it - but maybe that's because I'm about to go to bed :) Anyone else have any thoughts? EuroSong ^talk 00:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Removal of text from introduction

I'm not sure about the recent removal of a lot of text from the introduction. Certainly it needed to be modified; some of the text before was a little sensationalist and not very encyclopedic, but there was still some good information and explanation. I think the introduction is very much inferior now without it; it doesn't really explain the topic of the article and jumps straight in to the statistics about London without even mentioning other areas. -- DatRoot 20:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The editor who made this change called the previous version non-encyclopædic - but I think the new version is poorer, as it does not serve the article well. An article's lead is supposed to summarise the article, while providing an introduction for context. The previous version was not perfect - and needed more references - but it did its perscribed job. The changed version does not. I think I'll change it back. The issue should be discussed here further: in particular, discuss how to improve the lead, and what precisely is non-encyclopædic about the current version. EuroSong ^talk 23:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I've made a few changes, by merging a couple of the paragraphs and toning down the language a bit. I think we now need a source or two that references the other regions, and the last last paragraph needs some work. I'm not sure we can keep the sentence about 6.5 million people not knowing their own phone number. -- DatRoot 00:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The trouble with what has been added back is there are no credible sources (see Wikipedia:Citing sources) used to back it up. The Ofcom reports (2004 and 2005) do not say he problem as significant beyond London so they should not be used as a basis for constructing a nationwide "problem". Without sources to back it up, it should be removed again. I haven't had a chance to look through the Ofcom archive, maybe they comissioned a report following one of the other changes which may help? MRSC • Talk 07:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Error/misconception in the text?

The article states that "The area code and local number is 11 digits long. For historical and population density reasons, the split of area code and local number digits can be 3 and 8, 4 and 7, or 5 and 6". However in the 01524 (Lancaster/Morecambe/Carnforth) area there are numbers whch are 5+5 (01524-3xxxx, 01524-6xxxx) 5+6 (01524-4xxxxx, 01524-8xxxxx) 6+5 (015242-xxxxx) I'm not sure how common this is in the rest of the country - here locally we have a mix of city and rural exchanges, plus the legacy of the 3xxxx numbers being originally used with a prototype electronic/mechanical hybrid exchange in the late 1970's may complicate things. The 015242 numbers are all rural. I'm loathe to attempt to alter the text myself as (a) it may not be a nationally significant confusion and (b) I'm hard pressed to see how to do it without causing more confusion. Any thoughts?81.86.230.16 (talk) 02:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a rarity. There's less than a dozen places where that happens. There's a list somewhere, but I can't find it at present. (79.73.128.99 (talk) 11:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC))

Why the mess?

Countries all over the world use and have used predetermined standards for their phone numbers. For example in the US, all area codes are three digits, all prefixes are three digits, and extensions are all four digits, thus eliminating the confusion. The rest of the world figured it out? I would think we could, since we've had the telephone longer than most.

213.123.228.82 (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)Erik

But this system is so...um...ah... quaint? --Blake the bookbinder (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I read somewhere that the USA was fast running out of telephone numbers and radical changes were planned. New york was to be wrenched from its longstanding city code and split up. Has that been implemented yet? (Ah, but American's are so conservative when faced with change...) It is happening all over the world; the codes were designed for the 1960's, but suddenly every business needs huge numbers of 'phone lines, telephone, fax and data connection, a bank of direct dial numbers etc etc.

No wonder people get the technicalities wrong. It doesn't make them bad people, unless they are in the telecom industry of course.

LG02 (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Reinstated parentheses around area codes

This article used to show all area codes with parentheses: (020) 8888 8888.

117.104.179.8 removed the parentheses from the London section when doing a slight simplification of the language; I can only assume that the editor did not appreciate their significance. Rapido put some of them back in (but wrote the pre-2000 numbers with a dash instead: 0181-888 8888). JGXenite removed the parens and dashes with the comment "hardly ever see area codes quoted in brackets now", and Rapido put them back ("brackets are required for geographic numbers"). None of these editors made any change to the later parts of the article which discuss other areas of the UK -- these continued to show the area codes in parentheses.

Parentheses around the part of the number that need not always be dialled (i.e. the area code) are recommended by both Ofcom and by the ITU-T. They also serve to clearly distinguish the optional from the non-optional parts of the number; a distinction which is absolutely central to the point made by this article, and therefore more critical here than in most contexts.

The dash format used by Rapido for pre-2000 numbers was originally used for all-figure numbers, but has not been the recommended format for years -- certainly the parentheses format was in use immediately before the Big Number changeover. Furthermore, I feel it is clearer for the reader if the article sticks to a single convention (the one in current use). Using an old formatting convention for older numbers risks confusing readers who may wonder what the difference is between 071-888 8888 and (071) 888 8888. Finally, the article should be consistent throughout.

For all these reasons, I have reverted all full phone numbers in the article to showing the area codes in parentheses.TomH (talk) 21:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Tom, I fully agree. The presence of the brackets serves to make absolutely clear the distinction between the area code and the local number - which is, as you say, the focal matter of this article. EuroSong ^talk 10:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Using the old 0171-xxx xxxx format for old numbers makes perfect sense; i.e. writing the old style numbers in the old format that was used at the time they were in use is more clear. Numbers like 071-xxx xxxx were never written like (071) xxx xxxx so it makes sense to not do that here for those now. (79.73.128.99 (talk) 11:08, 3 June 2009 (UTC))

Almost right

I live near Coventry and have seen a lot of companies writing their number as e.g. 024 76 123123. This format seems to be a blend of the old and new lengths and is particularly used when a number looks 'better' as a six-digit one (because it was chosen before 2000, say) - the above is supposed to be written as (024) 7612 3123 but that does not capture the mnemonic pattern. The 3-2-6 splitting is not technically wrong as you can still identify the STD code, and the 4-4 split is more or less arbitrary. (Cf the University of Warwick who write their numbers as 024 765 xxxxx becuse they use a 5-digit internal system.) 137.205.74.30 (talk) 12:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If you want to see some real stupidity along these lines, just look at the number chosen by the 2012 Olympics organising committee. [3]

But to add to the confusion, sometimes a space is placed within the area code. For example, Frensham numbers used to be written as 025 125 xxxx. 025125 was just an unusually long STD code. Nowadays Frensham is within the 01252 (Aldershot/Farnham) code area. So generally, you can't tell what length of area code is implied by such formatting. (I don't know if any dialling codes still get written in this way, but some people might be used to them.) So indeed, better is not to use this space after the 76 - or if you feel you must, at least put the brackets round the 024. -- Smjg (talk) 12:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Sheffield

In mid-2009, Sheffield is now suffering the same problems as other areas. The correct area code is 0114, and the local number has seven digits. Until now, the local number always begun with a '2', written as 2xx xxxx. Many people have believed their code was 01142, and have therefore quoted only a six digit local number: http://twitter.com/jonnyhaynes/statuses/2291746452

Sheffield has now run out of 2xx xxxx numbers and is starting to use 3xx xxxx numbers. People are prefixing those numbers with a 2 for local dialling (which makes an eight digit number) and which connects after the first seven digits have been dialled: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/Calling-Sheffield-0114-3-.5389052.jp - even the local paper has confused the issue again by saying that there is a 'new 01143 code' for Sheffield.

01159 really the code for anywhere?

A snippet of an email I received today:

[...] each has a five digit dialling code, then the 6-digit number (in my copy of the Handbook anyway). This is the normal format for all except London and other big city numbers. 01159 is the code for Sutton Bonington, as an outpost of the Nottingham code 0115.

There are a few things wrong here:

• according to all other sources I can find, Sutton Bonington is in the 01509 code
• in 1995 when the 0115 code was introduced, a 9 was prepended to all numbers transferred from the 0602 code, so this would have created a clash
• my understanding of "big city numbers" has always been that these include any such outposts
• my understanding has for the last 9 years been that the forms of landline codes are 02x, 011x, 01x1 and 01xyz where x ≠ 1 ≠ y, with a few legacy 01wxyz codes as the only exceptions

Meanwhile, I've made further enquiries.... -- Smjg (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

01509 is Loughborough. I also see area codes like 02070 and 02077 being used on occasions by some very confused people. (79.65.231.153 (talk) 01:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC))

I know that 01509 is the code for Loughborough. It's also shared with some of the surrounding small towns and villages, hence my point. And I've seen 0207x nonsense too – including in the 1471 on at least one operator. -- Smjg (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Original research

this article is just one big piece of original research. --Cameron Scott (talk) 08:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

OK. So I am in the middle of editing, as can be seen from the history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK_telephone_code_misconceptions&oldid=311623861 and you start reverting stuff. I have a huge pile of notes here, but every time I try to add references I get an 'edit conflict'. I am walking away. (79.73.144.221 (talk) 09:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC))

What sources are you wanting to add? Are they reliable sources such as newspaper or journals or they are more of the forum posts and direct references to pages with numbers on them that the article is currently full of? --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Newspapers, Radio and TV are the *main* bunch of idiots that are *creating* the problem. And, when they try to explain the problem to their audience, they almost always screw it up and make the problem worse. (79.73.196.229 (talk) 19:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC))

Then we have a problem because those are the sources that we use to write articles - we don't use our own experiences and inductive reasoning. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The big deal?

I suggest a section on the problems caused by this confusion, because to be honest I don't see the big deal.

In most peoples minds the London codes are 0207 and 0208 for Inner London and Outer London so who cares how BT want it done. You dial the number and it works. Always has. Always will. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.183.86 (talk) 15:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You have obviously missed the point entirely. It's not about "how BT wants it done". It's about the distinction between an area code and a local number. There is a practical difference, which affects how numbers are dialled and connected. And the people who think that London has two (or more) codes are just plain wrong. If, "in most people's minds", 1+1=3 - then would you still say "who cares?"? Additionally, your statement about "inner" and "outer" London is incorrect, because - if you'd understood the article - you'd see that local numbers beginning with an 8 are now being allocated in central London, so the 8 doesn't just mean "outer London". By the way: "always has. always will" is also completely incorrect, and again shows your deep lack of understanding of the issue. EuroSong ^talk 18:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, you don't just "dial the number and it works". You do on a mobile, or a national call, yes. But what about a local call, within London? (Only like 10 million people or something!) In that case, people who don't understand the difference between the eight-digit local number and the dialling code for London - which is 020 - get it wrong, and screw up. This is why it's so stupid to talk about 0207 and 0208 and 0203, those entirely fictional London codes. To people who say that these are London codes, I say "show me the magic phone on which you can dial seven-digit local numbers within your local 0208 code area" ... and guess what, they can't! So, yep, it is a real problem, the authorities have screwed up on the chance to educate people, and many people just don't get it and go on misleadingly quoting numbers in the wrong format. The London number for TfL travel enquiries is 7222 1234. Not anything else. Sigh. :) DBaK (talk) 19:29, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The misconceptions do lead to nasty consequences. See what's happened in Reading (indeed, this article is in the references). -- Smjg (talk) 18:38, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

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