What's your telephone number?
The Philippines is thought to be the world’s texting capital. Yet businesses and individuals alike seem not to be too familiar with how telephone numbers should be written or even dialed. This article applies to both mobile phones and landlines.
Let’s start with landlines first.
Let’s also say that you have a friend who lives in Manila. His number is 878-8888.
Let’s also assume that you are from Manila, too.
How should you call your friend?
Let’s say one day, you needed to call your friend because you wanted him to know that you will be visiting your relatives in Baguio. Dialing 878-8888 would connect you to your friend. It’s that simple.
Let’s also say that when you got to Baguio, you wanted your friend to know what happened to you trip. So how do you call him?
You can no longer just dial 878-8888 because (a) you are no longer within the same area code as your friend, and (b) just dialing 878-8888 might connect you to someone who is in Baguio who has 878-8888 as his telephone number.
What do you do then? You need to know two things.
First, you need to know about a couple of things. You need first to know the National Direct Distance (NDD) access code. In the Philippines, the NDD access code is zero (0). This is applicable whichever part of the country you are in.
Next, you also need to know the area code of the telephone you wanted to connect to. Manila uses two (2).
Let’s dial now. Dial 0 (for the NDD code); 2 (for the area code); then the telephone number.
That’s it!
While this is in fact very simple, even PLDT is confused about area codes. Try calling their directory assistance by dialing 187 and ask for the telephone of a friend who lives in Manila. Their recorded telephone assistance would say, “The area code is zero-two...”
Woah! Zero is not part of the area code!
The area code for Manila is two (2)!
And may I add. PLDT also got confused with their NDD access code. Take a look at this link from their site. http://www.pldt.com.ph/prod-serv/customerserv/ndd.htm.
The NDD access code stated on their site is zero-zero (00). In fact, 00 is their International Direct Distance (IDD) access code.
Let’s move on.
Let’s also say that you won the lottery and you decided to visit some friends in the US. Of course, you can’t resist telling your friend in Manila about what you have been up to.
What are things to know so you can get in touch with your friend?
These are the things you need to know:
1.The International Direct Distance access code of the country you are calling from; and
2.The Country Code of the country you are calling to.
Each country uses a different IDD access code. You may visit this link for the List of International call Prefixes.
Going back to our example, you wanted to call your friend in Manila, Philippines who uses the number 878-8888.
So you dial 011 (for the IDD access code of the US); 63 (the country code of the Philippines); 2 (the area code of Manila); and your friend’s telephone number.
Now, this becomes difficult to write because as we have mentioned, each country uses a different IDD access code.
But there is a solution. The plus sign (+) is used to replace the IDD access code when writing telephone numbers in international format.
Thus, your friend’s telephone number becomes +6328788888. Now, that’s a long number to write, or even read.
While there is no written rule as to how telephone numbers should be written, at least here in the Philippines, what is suggested is to use the following format:
+country code (area code) telephone number
So your friend’s telephone number becomes +63 (2) 878-8888. Doesn’t that look better? The area code is placed inside the parenthesis so it can be differentiated from the country code and the actual telephone number.
And now to make things a little more confusing, your friend’s telephone number can now be written differently as:
878-8888
(2) 878-8888
63 (2) 878-8888
+63 (2) 878-8888
Others may also use dots and/or dashes.
Thus, the same telephone number may also appear as:
878.8888
(2) 878.8888
2.878.8888
63.2.878.8888
or even +63.2.878.8888
However, I’d still suggest that area codes be placed inside parenthesis to avoid confusion and to differentiate it from the rest of the numbers.
Moreover, if you will be using a mobile phone, dialing the plus sign (+) instead of the IDD access code will also connect you to your party.
Coming next: mobile telephone numbers.
