I've got a feeling I've asked this before, but my memory is failing with old age so be gentle with me!
If you put your own area code in front of a local number does it cost any more to ring it?
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>> If you put your own area code in front of a local number does it
>> cost any more to ring it?
>>
Not with my supplier.
I think BT abolished the distinction between national and local charges a few years ago.
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>> If you put your own area code in front of a local number does it
>> cost any more to ring it?
I use 18866 and *have* to put in the local code - a "phonebook" internal to the telephone is a good thing!
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Keeping up L'escargot's pun about negatives, in another thread, the question may be negated soon
www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/25/ofcom_local_numbers/
" making everyone dial an area code for every call.
That would allow local phone numbers to start with "0" and "1", something they can't do at present as "01" and "02" are always area codes under the existing system."
Last edited by: John H on Fri 3 Dec 10 at 13:56
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It's amazing how many adverts still carry words like 'costs the same as a local call'. The truth is - and has been for years - that there is no longer any such thing as a local call. Worse, the 0845 and similar numbers these adverts use are usually excluded from free allowances and monthly minutes in mobile contracts, so they actually cost more than dialling the regular 01 or 02 number.
In the days when there were local (and a and b rate national) calls, they were defined in terms of distance, so a call could be to a neighbouring STD code but still count as local. My dad used to tell me that dialling the full number unnecessarily would cost more, but I think he was wrong about that.
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"I've got a feeling I've asked this before"
I believe you did and the answer is still no, it makes no difference.
I suspect that many (most?) people have a package these days giving unlimited UK calls anyway. It is amazing how cheap voice calls have become, especially when you remember pre STD days and queuing at phone boxes.
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>> It is amazing how cheap voice calls have become
And even more amazing how it cheaper to call outside UK than calling a UK number within UK :-)
Calling a mobile in USA/India/etc. at anytime of day is 0.05p/min from BT landline.
During peak hours, calling a UK mobile number from same line under same price plan costs 10p/min!
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 3 Dec 10 at 15:16
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I remember the days when calling Oz would cost a small fortune.
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>> 0.05p/min
Sorry, I meant 0.5p/min
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This takes me back!
Local calls used to be to your own and adjacent 'charge groups'. These would be indicated in the directory. Dialling the STD code shouldn't make any difference to the charging as long as everything was programmed right at the originating exchange!
Anyone remember when you could 'hop' from one area to another by dialling a string of local codes?
STD also means Sexually Transmitted Disease. It's not possible to to pick up one of these from a telephone, although you may from a telephone operator, was the warning given to company employees!
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>>Anyone remember when you could 'hop' from one area to another by dialling a string of local codes? >>
When we had our first phone installed in the early 1960s, the BT engineers were personal friends at the time.
They told me after the installation that they had checked the phone was working correctly by dialling a known local number through a string of codes covering other areas.
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My dad used to be able to do that but I know at that time it was on the old Strowger (?) switches, I think electronics ended that capability area by area as it was introduced in the 70s and 80s.
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Also in the uniselector times I'm told you could "tap" a number out on the cradle without needing your 4d for the call.
Anyone in the exchange with "an ear" for the sounds of the place could hear it happening, as the speed and rhythmn was all over the place, compared to the regular chatter.
God's Poor Orphan then had a choice of clearing it down just at the point of the call commencing, or sending the van out to put the wind up, or catch, the culprit.
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'Tapping out' the number worked - I've done it to bypass a physical lock on a dial telephone.
I always thought 'hopping' using a string of STD codes was what we now call an urban myth.
The idea was to get a long-distance connection for the price of a local one.
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>I always thought 'hopping' using a string of STD codes was what we now call an urban myth.
As an 'insider' I can assure you that wasn't true, as long as you used 'local' codes beginning with an 8 or a 9.
I understood the 'tapping out' of a dial code only worked to avoid the charge on payphones.
I've just remembered I signed the official secrets act and shouldn't be telling you this stuff.
I shouldn't have just told you that!
Last edited by: bathtub tom {p} on Fri 3 Dec 10 at 23:14
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>> I understood the 'tapping out' of a dial code only worked to avoid the charge
>> on payphones.
Seems a jolly complicated way to get a freebee when discrete use of a Yale key worked on the old penny slot...until you dropped it in and had to tell mum you'd lost it.;)
Hah you won't take me alive copper....he wailed from the black maria.
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Dialling your own area code - John H
