Phone number cadence

[John Connor]

Here's my phone number.

44 69 64 20 49 20 70 75 74 20 61 20 68 65 78 20 6f 6e 20 79 6f 75 3f

 

[DeathReborn]

In the UK numbers are typically 2 (or 4) numbers for country (0044 / +44 for UK), 5 for local area & 6 for personal number. For national calls it's 5-3-3 typically. For local it often reduces the area from 5 to 2 numbers (for example 02392 becomes 92 for Portsmouth) but typically you still do the personal number 3-3. Using the +44 you strip away the first digit of the local area code (+44 2392...).

Saying all that people have been known to do local numbers as 4-4 (1234-5678 instead of 12-345-678) but they often have to repeat it so people get it right.

 

[A Casual Fitz]

Also, if your phone number is 123-1614 you say "one, two, three pause one two one four". You do not say "one, two, three pause sixteen fourteen".

That would really be messing with the caller if you say the wrong numbers.

 

[brianmanahan]

♫ one eight seven, seven seven seven, seven seven nine eight! ♫

♫ garfield one two three two three, garfield one two three two three! ♫

 

[Ichinisan]

Voicemail probably came from a foreign call center.

 

[twinrider1]

You guys think about stuff like this?

As a former AT&T long distance operator, yes.

 

[John Connor]

As a former AT&T long distance operator, yes.

I heard all the operators worked in Utah.

 

[twinrider1]

? Is that a joke that I'm not getting?

 

[John Connor]

I can't find the Info, but I read or heard somewhere that a large majority of operators worked in Utah.

This is all I could find.

http://www.sltrib.com/blogs/utaheffect/4018830-155/the-utah-effect-we-have-14

http://voxperitus.com/telephone-history/

 

[twinrider1]

Hmm, not sure. Browsing the first article, I can still see a need for operators that help the deaf, but traditional operator work is 99% automated now. Collect, person-to-person, bill to a calling card, bill to a third party....who does that anymore? Well, prisoners still call collect, but that's about it. We also did emergency interrupts; for a fee we would break into a busy line and let the person know so-and-so was trying to reach them. Then there were operators for directory, toll-free directory, and hotel billing. With a hotel, you can't wait for the end of the month to get your bill, so the operator calls back at the end of the call with time and charges, so they can bill the guest.

Aaaaand that concludes the more than you ever wanted to know about operators portion of our show.

 

[John Connor]

I really did know all that and I'm old enough to have used a rotary phone.

It was just some tidbit I leaned many, many years ago that Utah once was the state of which all operators were located at when you pressed 0. I used to bug the operator for the time in such and such place and ask where an area code and prefix belonged. Then there was 411. I used to make collect calls to my mom when I was young to have her pick me up from the public pool. Then she got a 1-800 number which was nice.

Now a days I have Comcast and I can't get a collect calls with Comcast voice and the operator goes to 1-800-comcast.

I had a DTMF tone generator which I put to use. LOL

 

[Red Squirrel]

lol speaking of DTMF tones, I remember having to call the driver license service for something, I don't recall what, but it required entering the driver license number (which has letters in it too) through the phone. So like if it was B, you had to type 1 and then 2, or something like that. Problem is, they really did not give you much time, and it was kinda tedius having to look at the letter, then figure out on the phone... basically it took maybe a few seconds per digit to do. That was too slow for the IVR and it kept kicking me out. So I generated the tones in Sound Forge, and played it out on the phone. It totally worked! I thought it was the coolest thing at the time.

 

[John Connor]

Yeah, those machines can listen to a very high speed rapid set of tones. You could have used auto dial as well. The pause is there to insert a 2 second silence between tones.