in phone preferences you can set phone to dial 1 before number for long distance calls.but this seems to work only for an area code different than the phones area code.is there a way of dialing 1 before number for your own area code when you are out of town and want to call home or voice mail etc

I just put a 1 in front of all my numbers in my phone book. I've never experienced a downside to this. It also simplifies large city issues where you are required to dial area code before the number when calling between local-yet different, area codes.

--Hadron

Another option is to use a third party dialer. I LOVE TakepHone. I have all my phone numbers entered as 123-456-7890. Then I have telephony in TakepHone set up for 3 modes:

1. "Local dialing" (Just dials numbers as entered in book.)
2. "Long Distance" (Adds a 1 in front of any number in book dialed automatically.)
3. "Calling Card". (Automatically dials the access#,ID#,PIN# and phone number of any number in phone book.)

This is handy because if it is business long distance I just use straight long distance so I can submit my bill, but for personal long distance, I select Calling Card.

TakePhone seems to be a popular app around here and I'm sure you'll get many similar suggestions.

ST

Area codes have nothing to do with long-distance.

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- Paul

Digit-analysis (the telephony term for figuring out what class of number a subscriber is dialing) has nothing to do with long-distance or local calls in different area codes. At least for the USA, the country is carved up into LATAs (Local Access Transport Areas). Intra-LATA calls are local; inter-LATA calls are long-distance. There is no correspondence between LATAs and area-codes as there can be multiple area codes in the same LATA.

For POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service land-lines), the only reason the leading 1 is needed is because the switch connects you upon entering the last digit -- there's no Send for POTS. Of course it has to "know" which digit is the last digit. It "knows" because no prefixes start with a 1. Hence, if you don't dial a leading 1, the number MUST be 7 digits; if you dial a leading 1, then the number MUST be 10 digits, i.e., with area-code.

But cell phones don't have this problem because the entire number is sent to the switch upon Send so it doesn't have to figure anything out. Therefore, it's not clear to me why the option even exists for prefixing a leading 1 -- it should never need to be dialed.

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- Paul

I live in Southern California, with multiple local area codes. I always dial the area code, but never dial a '1' in front of any number, local or long distance.

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John H. Boyd

Based on area code splitting here in Seattle, I'm going to say that it doesn't work like you describe anymore, if anything, in larger metropolitain areas. For example, as of February 2001 in the Seattle area in order to call from the new 360/564 area codes you must dial using 10 digits (no 1) for local calls. It goes further in that all locally billed calls between area codes must be dialed with 10 digits. Its interesting because 564 area code overlays over the entire western portion of the state over the top of all of those existing codes, so two neighbors could have different area codes where they used to be the same.

After a bit of poking around I've found that a statement from a Bell Atlantic executive said that the "1" prefix nowadays stays around to indicate to the user that they are paying for a toll call but that the technology is in place to bill the caller regardless of how they dial the number. [EDIT: This seems to explain John Boyd's post above.]

If anyone is really interested and is still awake after reading the above stuf, I found a pdf describing the change produced by the North American Numbering Plan Administration.

--Hadron

This could be a local issue then. In Canada it will not allow a call to go through unless you dial the 1 first. eg. if my cell number was based in Toronto and I wanted to call a number based in Vancouver (landline or cell) the system would tell me that I must use a 1 before dialing.

thats absolutly correct stmax.my cell number is based in toronto 416 area code. when i go to country home i cant call any number in toronto in 416 area code without dialing a 1 before it. i can program phone to dial 1 before other area codes even 905 which is second local toronto area code. any ideas

Good... I thought I was imagining things this whole time!

That makes sense that it is making you dial the 1. Because your phone (or the tower your phone is closest to) is now outside of the local calling area that your are calling to. It is strange though because if you were at your country home and someone in Toronto dialed your number as a local number it would reach you fine and only you would incur incoming Long Distance charges.

I see where it won't work for you because the simple dialer just has a feature of adding the prefix 1 whenever you are dialing an area code that is different than your own programmed code.

That could get tricky. As I mentioned in my first response the app TakePhone makes it REALLY easy. I would at least try downloading the trial to see if you can set up the telephony options to meet your needs.

ST

Yeah, if 7-digit dialing isn't permitted, then (obviously) all numbers are 10 digits, so the switch "knows" which is the last digit and you don't need the leading 1.

The thing I don't get is that, if you enter a "1" in the 7135 preference, how does the 7135 "know" which area codes are local and which are long distance? It doesn't. You'd need a way to enter a list of local area codes so it could prepend the "1" only to those not in the list. It seems like a half-assed preference.

IMHO, overlays are dumb. They should have done number "class" area-code splits. What I mean by that is that primary POTS lines would retain the original area code, but all secondary lines for modems, fax machines, etc., would receive the new area code retroactively.

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- Paul