E.164 and Telephone Number Display Formats
Mark J Cuccia
> What is the name of the "standard" telephone number format. The plus
> sign, followed by the country code, followed by the in-nation full
> number with area code, with hyphens/spaces/dots for punctuation?
I think you must mean the "ITU Recommendation E.164" document, which
reports the standards for numbering (and dialing) for worldwide/
international telephone services, including telephone country code
assignments and such.
BTW, I think that the E.164 "recommendation" prefers that all parsing of
blocks of digits be *SPACES*. I do *NOT* like to use spaces, because if
I'm typing a full worldwide number and it appears near the right margin of
a line in an email or word processor program, part of the telephone number
will "wrap" to the next line. I use *DASHES* (hyphens) to parse blocks of
digits, so as to preserve the *entire* number in a single "line". Let the
*full/entire* number "wordwrap" to the next line in such cases.
But, the ITU E.164 recommendation is to display as: +1 311 555 2368
I have also sometimes seen people (mostly Europeans) display the
parsing with "dots" between blocks of numbers. Even many Americans (US
and Canadians) are beginning to display numbers as 1.311.555.2368
rather than 1-311-555-2368. Using 'dots' to parse out the number makes
it look more like an IP address. Even ENUM IP addresses of telephone
numbers have to "reformat" the telephone number in "reverse" order,
parsing it (with dots) *digit by digit*. But I am more likely to think
of 1.311.555.2368 as being an IP address rather than a telephone
number.
Also, many in the NANP have displayed the NPA (area code) in
parenthesis. With overlays and mandatory ten-digit (or 1+ten-digit)
dialing in force in more and more places, the NPA (area code), IMO
should *NOT* be placed separately in parenthesis, as it *IS* (and
actually always *HAS* been) an *INTEGRAL* part of the NANP-based
(ten-digit) telephone number! i.e., many people/ads/etc. would
indicate a number as: (311) 555-2368
I know that in the 1960s/70s/80s era, AT&T and telcos frequently
listed full ten-digit NANP numbers by a space between the NPA code and
the c.o.code, and a dash/hyphen separating the office code and
line-number, (but NO parenthesis surrounding the area code) as: 311
555-2368 Again, the *space* these days could cause a word-wrap to
"break" the telephone number onto two lines.
Again, IMO the "best" way to display a number would be with
hyphens/dashes to parse-out 'defined' blocks. In the NANP, many don't
indicate the +1 country code, but MIGHT indicate a leading 1+ as the
'ten-digit' _OR_ 'toll indicator' access digit (depending on which
part of the NANP you are from, as to what does the '1+' really
"mean")...
311-555-2368 (which would be understood *within* the NANP as NANP number)
1-311-555-2368 (includes the 1+ type access prefix, but it could be taken
by others from outside of the NANP to be the COUNTRY code for the NANP)
+1-311-555-2368 (THIS is the most NON-ambiguous way, IMO, to display a
NANP-based telephone number, for use both within and from outside of the
NANP! And it "shouldn't" word-wrap if close to the right margin!)
mjc
Dave Close
> BTW, I think that the E.164 "recommendation" prefers that all parsing of
> blocks of digits be *SPACES*. I do *NOT* like to use spaces, because if
> I'm typing a full worldwide number and it appears near the right margin of
> a line in an email or word processor program, part of the telephone number
> will "wrap" to the next line. I use *DASHES* (hyphens) to parse blocks of
> digits, so as to preserve the *entire* number in a single "line". Let the
> *full/entire* number "wordwrap" to the next line in such cases.
Most word processing programs will also break a line on a hyphen, just
as if it were in the middle of a compound word. But in most WP
programs, you can enter a mandatory or hard space instead of just
hitting the space bar. A hard space looks the same but doesn't allow
line breaks. Some WP programs also have a hard hyphen, but that is
less common.
All this means that line breaks should not be a reason to choose a
separator. Any separator can either break a line or not, depending on
how you use your programs. Contrary to Mark, I try to follow the ITU
recommendation exactly, as in my signature below. I've not found the
practice to be at all inconvenient. Mark correctly cites many of the
strange permutations which have been and are used in North America. I
think it would be great if, instead of promoting his own permutation
and continuing the lack of standardization, Mark could stick with
E.164.
The usage which drives me crazy is when someone mixes styles. Many
companies list their world-wide offices in an ad or Web page, but
don't follow a single style for the numbers. For North American
numbers, they typically omit the country code and put the NPA in
parentheses; for many other countries, they put the country code in
parentheses, but sometimes they omit it completely. Anyone reading
such an ad in a non-North American country would think the NANP used
many country codes.
Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA da...@compata.com +1 714 434 7359
dhc...@alumni.caltech.edu
"Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use."
Gary Novosielski
news:telecom2...@telecom-digest.org:
> +1-311-555-2368 (THIS is the most NON-ambiguous way, IMO, to display a
> NANP-based telephone number, for use both within and from outside of the
> NANP! And it "shouldn't" word-wrap if close to the right margin!)
I usually write my numbers in the form +1.311.555.2368, for exactly
the reasons Mark specified. The leading + sign (which is a part of
the ITU recommendations, and should come before the country code,
which coincidentally happens to be 1 in the NANP area) helps to
distinguish what might otherwise look like an IP address. It is true
that almost everyone ignores the recommendation to use spaces to
format the number, however. Most common alternatives are the hyphen
(dash) or the decimal point (dot).
I think that the reason many people use the dot in preference to the
dash, to parse groups of numbers (apart from wanting to appear
euro-trendy) is Mark's observation about word-wrapping of phone
numbers near the right margin. However, unlike his, my experience has
been that in most common word-processing programs, a number with
dashes (hyphens) WILL be broken at the right margin and continued on
the next line, unless you go to the trouble of designating the dash as
a "non-breaking" hyphen, which usually involves a special keystroke
combination that I can never remember. The telephone number formatted
with dots is less likely to be "hyphenated" by the software, and more
likely to be carried over to the next line as an intact whole.
Gary
Rich Greenberg
<mcu...@tulane.edu> wrote:
> BTW, I think that the E.164 "recommendation" prefers that all
> parsing of blocks of digits be *SPACES*. I do *NOT* like to use
> spaces, because if I'm typing a full worldwide number and it appears
> near the right margin of a line in an email or word processor
> program, part of the telephone number will "wrap" to the next
> line. I use *DASHES* (hyphens) to parse blocks of digits, so as to
> preserve the *entire* number in a single "line". Let the
> >*full/entire* number "wordwrap" to the next line in such cases.
Most word manglers have a character that prints as a space but acts as
a non-space for line breaks. In Word Perfect, its called "Hard Space"
and is entered as CNTRL+Space. In Word, its a nonbreaking space and
is entered as CNTRL+Shift+Space.
Rich Greenberg Work: Rich.Greenberg atsign worldspan.com +1 770-563-6656
N6LRT Marietta, GA, USA Play: richgr atsign panix.com +1 770-321-6507
Eastern time zone. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
Canines:Val(Chinook,CGC,TT), Red & Shasta(Husky,(RIP)) Owner:Chinook-L
Atlanta Siberian Husky Rescue. www.panix.com/~richgr/ Asst Owner:Sibernet-L
Joseph
wrote:
> Also, many in the NANP have displayed the NPA (area code) in
> parenthesis. With overlays and mandatory ten-digit (or 1+ten-digit)
> dialing in force in more and more places, the NPA (area code), IMO
> should *NOT* be placed separately in parenthesis, as it *IS* (and
> actually always *HAS* been) an *INTEGRAL* part of the NANP-based
> (ten-digit) telephone number! i.e., many people/ads/etc. would
> indicate a number as: (311) 555-2368
You may not care for it, but it's pretty much standard that when you
get a form and they want you to indicate your telephone number they
usuall have the form ( ) - . It's become standard whether we care for
the standard or not. As far as not using spaces and using a hyphen
(-) that won't necessarily save you from line wrapping either.
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