May 8, 2008

E.164 numbering plan, what about E.164 dial tone?

First I will say, for those that do not know, E.164 dialing is non – country specific dialing. On traditional systems, to place an international call from the UK you dial 00, whereas from the USA you dial 011. Of course each country has its’ own set of dial and call progress tones. E.164 dialing can begin with + such as on a GSM cell phone, but when dialing from traditional equipment the + is not an option so it s dropped, and dialing begins with the country code

Dial tone not only tells us the phone is ready to dial, but reminds us how to dial 011 or 00 as well as a unique set of call progress tones for busy, ringing, reorder, etc., by country.

It only makes sense. You go to England, or any other country, and you hear the country specific dial tone.

Now we have non-country specific E.164 dialing, so why not a dial tone that tells us that is the expected dial plan?

It makes perfect sense. The caller knows by the dial tone how he/she needs to dial “001” or simply “1” to start.

I therefore propose (assuming it does not yet exist) …….

E.164 dial tone , and all call progress tones that are uniquely identifiable be established and integrated into all new VoIP devices. . This will allow all E.164 systems to “remind” the user that they should use E.164 dialing, not UK, not USA, and not Mexico.