[VoIP] Numbering - existing use of 311

[Mark Rudholm]

OK, so it was still a technical issue, not a toll alerting system
for customers.  So I think my opinion remains --meh on 1+ Toll
Alerting.

I remember going to Huntington Beach as a kid (late 70s, iirc)
and thinking "hey, Lee Vining is really far away and in the same
area code (back then, 714 stretched from Mexico to Lake Tahoe),
I'm going to dial it as a seven digit call and see what happens"
I got an intercept telling me I needed to dial a 1 first.  That
was General Telephone land though, so I didn't really take it
seriously.

Speaking of which, the other day I tried dialing some places
in Arizona that are in the Los Angeles LATA (#730) from my
payphone.  This *should* have worked, since it was intra-LATA.
Turns out some destinations work and some don't.  I asked the
operator why I couldn't make a coin paid call despite it being
intra-LATA.  She didn't really say anything useful.  I suspect
ACTS is just out of date.

Man, I'd really like to have my own real ACTS system.  I don't
have the room for a DMS200 or 4ESS, though.  :-)


Steph Kerman wrote:
> Areas that used 10D dialing before NXX office codes were introduced were 
> served by Panel, Crossbar or ESS.  These did indeed adopt the use of 1+ 
> to enable the CO to know whether to wait for 7 or 10 digits.  However 
> 1+10D dialing was always required in most areas served by SXS equipment 
> to immediately pass the call through to the toll office when a 10 digit 
> call was dialed.  So it is not correct that when all NPAs were N0/1X all 
> calls were dialed as 7D or 10D. 
> 
> Many SXS areas, in addition to requiring 1+10D dilaing also required 
> 1+7D dialing for short haul toll, for the same reason: to allow the toll 
> office to capture the dialed digits for toll billing.  Whether the 1 
> prefix was a requirement for regulatory reasons, it was a necessity for 
> equipment reasons.  1+ dialing was also sometimes used on common control 
> offices in areas with mixed SXS and common control equipment to achieve 
> uniform dialing practices.  But many areas that were served by common 
> control equipment used 7 digit dialing for local as well as short haul 
> toll, without a 1+ prefix to distinguish toll and local.
> 
> Steph
> 
> Mark Rudholm wrote:
>> Maybe I have a southern California bias or something, but I never
>> really understood the whole "1+ Toll Alerting" business.  I realize
>> some people love it, but I always thought it was silly, and now
>> that long-distance is down in the 0-4 cents per minute range, is
>> it really that big of a deal?
>>
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't 1+ dialing introduced to
>> disambiguate out-of-npa calls when generalized (from NNX to NXX)
>> office codes were first assigned back in the early 70s?  Back when NPAs
>> were all N0/1X and office codes were all NNX, there were no O.C./npa
>> collisions, so all calls could be dialed as 7D or 10D without
>> ambiguity.  So the idea of 1+ = toll alerting seems like an artifact,
>> not something by design.
>>
>> Living in Los Angeles, where area codes are quite numerous, people
>> have generally started just dialing 1+10D for all calls.  Given that,
>> it seems to me that the 1 is now just anachronistic baggage, so for
>> my systems, I've dropped it.  I just use 10D for all calls.  You
>> can use 7D but there's a timeout.
>>
>> The telcos still require the 1, however.
>>
>> Also, in 310, which is scheduled for an overlay, 1+10D is now
>> mandatory on *all* calls.  I understand the rationale here is that
>> since the CLECs will be the ones primarily getting assignments in
>> the new area code, the CPUC wanted to level they playing field by
>> requiring 11D, thereby eliminating the preferability of 310 office
>> codes.
>>
>> But anyway, meh on 1+ toll alerting, I say.