Standards
Although the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has attempted to promote common standards among nation states, numbering plans take different formats in different parts of the world. For example, the ITU recommends that member states adopt 00 as their international access code. However, as these recommendations are not binding on member states, some have not, such as the United States, Canada, and other countries and territories participating in the North American Numbering Plan.
The international numbering plan establishes country codes, that is, area codes that denote nations or groups of nations. The E.164 standard regulates country codes at the international level and sets a maximum length limit on a full international phone number (15 digits). However, it is each country's responsibility to define the numbering within its own network. As a result, regional area codes may be:
- A fixed length, e.g., three digits in the United States and Canada; two digits in Brazil; one digit in Australia and New Zealand,
- A variable length, e.g., between 2 and 5 in Germany, Argentina, United Kingdom and in Austria; between 1 and 5 in Japan; 1 or 2 in Syria and Peru, or
- Incorporated into the subscriber's number, as is the case in many countries, such as Spain or Norway. This is known as a "closed" telephone numbering plan. In some cases a trunk code (usually 0) must still be dialed, as in Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa and some locations within the NANP. Hong Kong used to have 1-digit area codes. They were incorporated into the subscriber's numbers back into the 1990s. No trunk code is required.
Read more about this topic: Telephone Numbering Plan
Famous quotes containing the word standards:
“Men are rewarded for learning the practice of violence in virtually any sphere of activity by money, admiration, recognition, respect, and the genuflection of others honoring their sacred and proven masculinity. In male culture, police are heroic and so are outlaws; males who enforce standards are heroic and so are those who violate them.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)
“The home is a woman’s natural background.... From the beginning I tried to have the policy of the store reflect as nearly as it was possible in the commercial world, those standards of comfort and grace which are apparent in a lovely home.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“The standards of His Majesty’s taste made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the Statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival and bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded, and others burst.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)