Talk:North American Numbering Plan expansion

Examples

Could someone put in some examples, please. I have no idea what N9X means or why I should care? What would the effects be on a particular phone number be? How would it change? 04:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Can't handle all the above, but I hope my little addition at least clarified the Ns and Xs. Jim.henderson 06:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Obliged. 11:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.102.132.76 (talk)

I added a few examples which should help clear things up. Hope that helps a bit. ^_^ Cmantito 06:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm changing the example number to something in the designated fictional range. Currently, the 609 number used resolves to a TDD Line for a senior center in Ewing, New Jersey. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, the Canadian number goes to a psychotherapist in Ottawa, Ontario. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

I thought it best to add the tag to the Other Proposals section, based upon the fact that one is clearly championed over the other in the article. Even if this is logical, it's not exactly neutral. The first example has a "drawback" statement, while the second has an "advantages" statement. Hopefully this can be reworded by someone with more knowledge on the subject. *Vendetta* _{(whois talk edits)} 19:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This plan sounds like it will be confusing?

Why don't they just add a zero to everyone's phone number? E.g. the public White House comment line for example would go from 202-456-1111 to 202-456-11110. Then that leaves 202-456-11111, 202-456-11112, 202-456-11113, 202-456-11114, and all the way up to 202-456-11119 etc.

Because phone numbers are allocated in blocks of (generally) 10000 (so the white house might have gotten all of 202-456-xxxx) and adding numbers to the end would just make the blocks bigger, so not really creating any new numbers. Lazybeam (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and another reason not to just add a zero is because you would strand even more unused phone numbers in small communities. Right now, Muncho Lake, B.C., has a potential of 10,000 numbers, but is only using 20 or 30 -- less than a third of a percentage point! There are communities all over North America using less than a thousand numbers. Adding a zero would worsen this, with less than a thousand out of 100,000 possible numbers, and the supply of central office codes would not increase. In cities with multiple CO codes, each code would have 90,000 new numbers available, and in time they would use it. In a city with just two CO codes, one could possibly be reclaimed but it would result in number changes for thousands of people and businesses. Expanding the CO code is the best way to assure growth.

The N9XX 11 digit plan is not as good as the N9XX 12 digit plan, because the latter would result in a long period of stability, with the fastest growing NPA not needing relief for many years as it digs into a 9-fold increase in possible CO codes. GBC (talk) 16:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

00/11

The plan further proposes that the United States would use either 00 or 11, while Canada would use the other, in order to allow customers to distinguish countries by use of these digits, which do not appear at the beginning of the 12-digit number.

I'm a bit confused here. Wouldn't this be only a temporary advantage? Doing that would free up Canadian area codes for use in the US and vice versa, but due to the significantly greater population in the US, the US's gains would be relatively small, leading me to suspect that they would subsequently introduce new area codes with digits other than 1 or 0 as the fourth digit and new exchanges with digits other than 1 or 0 as the first digit, erasing the distinction, as one couldn't know whether a NXX2 area code was Canadian or US, for example. XinaNicole (talk) 23:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

A lot of us "area code philes" do not like this plan at all. We generally prefer the N9XX plan or some close variant of it. Also, the 00/11 plan is proposed by, I believe, a billing forum of the industry. If the FCC looks into it, I would hope that ordinary users help sink the 00/11 plan. GBC (talk) 16:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

600 vs 40 more

The 55, 57, 95 and 97 prefixes are difficult to use in a 2-5 Exchange name format, because they only have consonants, and ones in a sequence that does not occur as a diphthong, or have very limited application.

55 requires use of JJ, JK, JL, KJ, KK, KL, LJ, LK or LL, and risks misunderstanding. LLoydbrook could be taken as LOydbrook (56); KLickitat could be taken for CLickitat; if all occurrences of 55 were on a single exchange unit instead of different cities, then KLondike could be used... the one KL name that most people in North America would understand to begin with a K, not a C. In any case, KLondike 5 was geared toward phone company usage, including Long Distance Directory Assistance that came about during the 1960s and 1970s.

57 requires use of JP, JR, JS, KP, KR, KS, LP, LR or LS, and risks misunderstadning. KRamden could be taken as CRamden.

95 requires use of WJ, WK, WL, XJ, XK, XL, YJ, YK or YL, and there are no names that come to mind.

97 requires use of WP, WR, WS, XP, XR, XS, YP, YR or YS, and risks misunderstanding. WRentham could be taken as REntham.

These 36 letter combinations were also reserved for radio telephone identifiers, such as YJ5-1212. It was the intention of the phone companies to distinguish radio phones with these identifiers, so that operators would be able to distinguish them from landlines.

Some other combinations may also be considered less than desirable, and add to the 40.

This takes at least 40 possible NXXes out of the pool if the phone companies prefer to continue to assign names to exchanges, and rather than use them, the RBOC (regional Bell operating company) would instead ask the parent company to do a code split so that pronounceable names would continue to be plentiful.

When it became obvious that this was unsustainable, it affirmed the wisdom of moving to All-Number Calling, which was phased in during the 1950s and 1960s. Instead of spelling names in full in the directory, they were reduced to two letters, with a key on each page to indicate the full name. Next, some areas were assigned a new exchange that had letters but no name, with the letters being unpronounceable except individually, e.g. TK. After that, number-only exchanges were assigned, then existing exchanges were gradually converted to all-number calling, dropping the names. That began with smaller cities and then moved up to the major cities, where the population began to push back, slowing the conversion completion until about 1975.

That's why. GBC (talk) 20:33, 18 September 2018 (UTC)