Especially to rationally distribute international telephone numbers to different lands and regions of the world as well as among mobile phone providers the pone numbering plan is used. It’s anyway not right to mix international dialing codes with numbering plans. In areas like Australia or North America there exists a closed numbering plan that involves fixed length territory codes and telephone numbers.
There is also an open numbering plan working in a number of countries that haven’t unified it by now. For this numbering plan the length of the area calling code and local telephone number can vary. Dialling the numbers denoted by this plan you have to be sure to anyway dial the figures of the subscriber’s number, while the figures of the dialing code mustn’t be always dialed.
That appears to be very much hard to standardize the rules. Even though the International Telecommunication Union or ITU tried to introduce general norms of numbering plans and international dialing codes, they still are different in different lands. The organization desided to assign 00 as a common international access code for all the participating countries. Some countries have answered yes to the offer and entered the code, but as assigning the combination was not mandatory for the state members in some of them like United States the dialling codes stayed as they were. Mixed up? Give a try to brand reverse phone number!
Area codes (the codes that stand for countries or group of countries) are defined by the international numbering plan. Specially to fix the codes for international calls there is the E.164 system. It states the normal extension of the dialled number. The phone numbers in any country are just conditioned by its active network. So here are the variants of regional country codes with:
- Defined norms of the calling code that contains several units like three in the USA or 1 in Australia.
- A non-defined size. That is when the number of units differs like in Argentina (from two up to 5), like in Japan (from one to five) or like in Peru and Syria (from 1 up to two).
- Particular standards offering that the subscriber’s number has the calling code in its scheme, like in Spain. People call it a “closed” numbering plan. In regions like Belgium and Italy, the Netherlands, african countries or others they use 0 as a trunk-line calling code.
In fact the rate of the call is mainly defined by the area dialing code. The price for calls on the territory of the area dialing code generally goes lower than for the calls to the telephone numbers with another area calling code. The calls to the telephone numbers with adjacent area calling codes are also charged at smaller price.
But as in States the costs for home calls are assigned by the state itself while inter-city calls are defined by competition, it turns so that home calls seem to be less cheap.
But it may appear so that one area dialling code covers a big territory. The calls then are to be priced considering the range of the call.
The valuation centers usually determine rates for area segments measured in parts of about 6, 12 or more miles. But it became different with the lack of control of home telephone services.
Today it’s becoming popular between the customers to turn to a so-called “all-you-can-eat” plan (a set rate of about 30 dollars per month as fixed for May 2008 letting connect with any place of United States).
There can be particular area dialling codes. They are created usually for mobile phone systems in the lands where they are paid by the user or for free, premium accounts.
There as well may be various special variants. For example in countries like Egypt area dialling codes evaluate nothing because the costs are similar for the whole country and in the UK the calling code is made of two pieces each with its cost.
