Re Phone nos:

Some people here will still insist on saying "Dublin 777 7777" or just 777 7777 rather than 01 - 777 7777. Up until the mid-90s most Dubliners didn't seem to think they even had an area code it was only with the advent the massive uptake of mobile phones that they realised that (01) exsisted!

(There are now substantialy more GSM mobile lines than fixed lines! IRL has one of the highest mobile penetration rates in the world)

It's beginning to cause a lot of confusion as Dublin and Cork are no longer the only areas with 7-Digits so having just the local number on stationary won't automatically mean people dial 01 or 021.

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Some eircom switches (and those of other companies) actually accept the full international format number too. GSM networks have always done this.

E.g. if your number was 021 888 8888 you could dial 00 353 21 888 8888 and it will go thru and be charged as local rate.
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There's also the weird shortcut for Northern Ireland here. It originated from a need to identify NI calls as "national" for billing reasons. I presume that the old Xbar switches actually routed calls over the boarder rather than across the channel and back again. There is also a huge volume of cross-boarder calls so I guess it would have been useful to treat it as normal trunk traffic than as International. Until recently you simply prefixed the old NI area code with 08. E.g. Belfast was 01232 so you dialled 0801232.

NI = 028 in the UK (+44 28) and 8-Digit number.

From the Republic of Ireland you simply replace 028 with 048. Actually intergrates NI into the geographical North East area code system (04)

You can also dial 00 44 28 and will be charged at "National Rate" Some old (private) payphones etc can have problems with that though.

+ 353 48 XXXX XXXX doesn't exsist from abroad though.

Access to GB was also via 03 + area code until sometime in the 90s when the shortcode was phased out under some EU / ITU rule.

Did that exsist in other countries ? (other than places like Andora / Monaco) E.g. between the Benelux countries or in Scandinavia?

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There is a slow but defintate migration here to a standardised number length etc.

0XX - XXX-XXXX

They've also created a voicemail numbering space simply by prefixing the area code with 03
E.g. the mailbox for 021 999 9999 is 03021 999 9999

(Previously these numbers would have been network specific and hidden in the case of fixed lines or accessed by prefixing the local no with 5 in mobiles.)

Eircom provides free voicemail to all customers who want it. (They make more money when there is no busy tone and all call attempts are answered)

They insist on calling Voicemail "Call Answering" though! (Rather strange name). It rolled out in about 1992/3.

It's quite sophisticated, logs caller ID details etc, accepts SMS messages and reads them out if you don't have an SMS capable home phone. Allows messaging between mailboxes, forwarding messages etc etc.. pretty much like a fancy office system.

Kinda handy if you don't wanna talk to someone though [Linked Image]

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 06-15-2003).]