At home we have AT&T and recently had T-Mobile for our cell service. I noticed on all phones, regardless of manufacturer, incoming SMS and calls without names assigned displayed in the +1xxxyyyzzzz format. Specifically the number is prefaced with the +1.
I have a Verizon phone at work. I only see xxx-yyy-zzzz. What's more, I cannot call internationally by using the (+). The phone doesn't recognize that. I have to use 011. My attempt to call
My understanding is that "+" means "dial the international access code appropriate to your location, then this number." Thus, in the USA (if not all of the NANPA), "+" translates to "011." If you're calling an international number from a phone in China, "+" must be replaced with their international dialing prefix (which appears to be "00").
Note that numbers starting with the "+" have the country code as the very next digit(s), which is what follows the international prefix when dialing. The NANPA is unique in that the country code, matches our internal long distance prefix ("1"), further confusing people who are not used to international dialing.
The intelligence of using the "+" notation is that it assumes the caller can figure out the appropriate international prefix and dial it before dialing the rest of the number. Before cellphones, you could not find a "+" on the keypad (or dial, for that matter), so if you thought about it you might actually try and figure out what it meant.
It appears you've run across one smart cellphone that lets you enter the "+" character and it translates it as an international number. However, another model appears to not have that feature, so translated "+604" as area code
604; so you got Vancouver instead of Malaysia.
Bottom line, it is best to know the international access code and dial it directly and not rely on the phone translating "+" for you.
Yes. In GSM, all telephone numbers are dialed in international format, although I have no idea what number sequence the + would represent.
When I store a number from an inbound call in the address book, I edit the +1 that comes with each call to avoid wasting the screen space. Yes, I know it's dialed whether I've explicitly stored it in the address book or not.
No, it's part of the GSM standard. The whole point is that you can put numbers in your phone's address book, and they will work regardless of where in the world you use your phone. If I use my US phone in the UK, do I dial calls with 011 or 00? I have no idea, I dial +.
I'm sort of surprised that VZ phones don't support them, but it does appear to be a defect in their implementation of CDMA. Since CDMA phones work hardly anywhere outside NANP land, it's less of a practical issue.
On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:30:07 -0400, Gary wrote: ........
AFAIK it is not just the phone, it is the network either doing the translation or sending the phone the appropriate substitute string for the "+" so it works correctly.
If you roam you are told to always use the full "+nnn" string to prefix all your numbers so wherever you go, the call gets to the correct destination***
*** At my work we have a Skype Dualphone and even if you program the numbers in correctly, the dopey Skype software mucks up the dial string when you elect to use the landline instead of Skype - this is a known problem and no one on the 'net has come up with a solution in a few years now.
It all depends on what the sending service sends and the capability of the receiving phone or CID box. On pretty much all my calls on T-Mobile calls come in as 1 NXX NXXXXXX. If I receive a call from a Netherlands mobile number it comes in as +316NXXXXXXX or if it comes from an Israeli mobile number it comes in as +97254NXXXXXX. If you're receiving the call on a mobile phone it may come in as +country code/number on a regular CID box if it shows an international number it may just show the country code. You say you have a Verizon phone at work. Is this a Verizon land line or Verizon Wireless? If it's Verizon Wireless then it may not know what to do with a + character and it's probably due to the difference between how CDMA and GSM handles calls.
That was my question, I just didn't ask it very well. :-)
Except when a dullard like me hand enters a dozen international numbers using the (+) into his CDMA phone and ends up calling Canada instead of Malaysia. :-)
On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Joseph Singer wr ote:
Sorry, I should've been more clear. Verizon Wireless. Incoming international calls show up as 011-xxxxxxxxxxx. On my AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA phones domestic and international show up as
+xxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Even my wife's el cheapo feature phone on AT&T Mobility shows up with the plus sign.
It seems pretty clear to me it's a GSM feature. I had T-Mobile USA about 6 years ago but I don't remember if the plus sign ever showed up. It's something that just dawned on me recently.
"John Levine" responded in message news: snipped-for-privacy@joyce.lan...
Cool! That's a bit of dialing information I wasn't aware of. It certainly makes sense for mobile phones designed for a "Global" standard. I'm assuming you can still dial the international access code, if you choose.
How do you enter or dial the "+" on a basic GSM cell phone (i.e. non-smartphone with a standard keypad)? Is there a standard why to dial the "+"? Is it added to the "*" or "#'?
Correction: Inbound calls from the United States or another country in the NANP do not display the +, just the 1. I delete the 1 if I store the number in my address book; the phone knows to dial it anyway.
I assume the phone is treating 1 as a country code and not the trunk prefix which are inapplicable to cell phones thanks to the Send key.
This is the standard international way of writing US telephone numbers. That is, whatever the international prefix in your country is, plus the US country code, which is 1.
This is because 011 is the international dialing prefix in the US and Canada.
So, if you needed to call HP in London, their number is +44 344/424898. So you would dial 011 44 344 424898 on your phone from the US.
If you were in a different country with a different international dialing prefix, you would dial that before the country code.
No, it's a matter of how you write the number not how you dial it. You don't dial the parentheses and dashes when you call (800) 555-1212 either.
Well, LG's cu400 (as served up by Cingular) has extra functionality on its 0 (digit-zero) key, as shown by the + (plus-sign) and space- mark decorating it -- press-and-hold the 0 key and you generate the "+" dialing entry.
The 0 key on a Motorola SLVR L2 (also with Cingular branding), otoh, bears a + and an up-arrow (serving as shift key when composing text); again, press-and-hold the 0 key to generate a "+" dialing entry.
On a VoiceStream-branded Nokia 6610, however, press-and-hold of the "0" key brings up that handset's WAP browser; a "+" dialing entry requires, instead, multiple presses on the * (asterisk) key: a single press for *; two for +; three for p (2-second pause); four for w (wait for user input); and five for . (dot, or period -- use unknown).
So, in short: yes, there's a standard way to dial the "+" -- often a different standard way for each manufacturer :-) . Truly it's as the unknown 20th century wag put it, "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from amongst out there."
Here's a question for the mobile phone weenies: does the phone rewrite the number you dial before it sends it to the switch, or does it just send what you enter and the switch figures it out?
Since a mobile phone sends the whole number in a block, there's no ambiguity between 7 and 10 digit numbers, and the leading 1 on 1+10 doesn't tell it anything useful.
Around here, seven digit dialing on mobile phones still works (we have no overlays and no splits coming any time soon) but I assumed it was the switch knowing what to do, not the phone stuffing in an area code.
Regards, John Levine, snipped-for-privacy@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail.
I have a Verizon Blackberry Bold 9650 and the + sign DOES work overseas. For + to work, the device must be enabled for international roaming, which means it switches itself to GSM mode once you arrive overseas. The BB "knows" that your home country code is +1 and that all numbers in the address book without a + are, by definition, NANP numbers.
When I was in Spain last month, I just scrolled to an address book entry and pressed "send". The phone automatically appended the +1 and the call went right through to the US.
For numbers dialed manualy (i.e., not in the address book), the + key is activated and DOES work when in GSM mode.
When I returned to the US, the phone dropped back to CDMA mode.
Greg Monti, New York, NY snipped-for-privacy@mindsapring.com
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