Faulty number fix...

Some constructive criticism on Mr. Garfinkle's article (Telephony, April 6, page 39). There are no unambiguous digit positions in the local NXX-XXXX format; this renders this solution unworkable without a time-out interval to accommodate a permissive interval.

Mr Garfinkle ignores the existing reservation of N9X area codes against the possibility of expanding the area code to four digits, using 9 as a non-ambiguous indicator of code length, which I think is the best long-term answer and would accommodate a permissive interval.

His subsequent statement that "most calls would be long-distance, essentially resulting in full 12-character addressing" is patently fallacious. How can he hold himself out as a numbering expert if he hangs onto the old fallacy that dialed number length has anything to do with call cost (or lack thereof)?

By ITU regulations, only the digits 0 through 9 are acceptable in phone numbers worldwide. As far as I know, * and # have no signaling purposes beyond the local serving switch and are never transmitted domestically and certainly not internationally as part of a destination address. Furthermore, non-dial tone users couldn't reach his proposed symbol-containing numbers; there are significant numbers of dial-pulse users even within the NANPA.

Domestically, Mr. Garfinkle's suggestions require huge reprogramming efforts. Presently, * is only allowed as a prefix such as *69 for call return. Also presently, # (with no non-tone equivalent) is only allowed as a suffix to indicate the end of an address, useful only for many years on international calls and only recently to distinguish operators.

ITU regulations and common sense make me hope Mr. Garfinkle hasn't spent too much time and university money on his symbol-based tilt at windmills, which is creative but not in the cards by any means.