Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences

On Friday, 15 April, 2016 15:51, "John R. Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> said:

The US and most of the rest of North America have a fixed length numbering plan designed in the 1940s by the Bell System. They offered it to the CCITT which for political and technical reasons decided to do something else. (So when anyone complains that the NANP is "non-standard", you had your chance.) Fixed length numbers allowed much more sophisticated call routing with mechanical switches than variable length did.

[and a bunch more stuff] Thanks John - no bashing was intended, genuinely interested in the different models / histories, and that helps. Regards, Tim.