Your Call Can Not Be Completed at This Time Please Try Again

I wasn't going to web log about this.

Different nigh of my posts, which have at their core a desire to make things better by understanding how they happen, I have no hope that this situation will ameliorate.

Just afterwards weeks of incredible personal frustration, it was the mounting complaints by my friends and co-workers that convinced me that this situation truly needs an explanation. Somebody somewhere made this determination, and I desperately desire to know what they were thinking.

I'm talking virtually the contempo change southern Connecticut made to their phone numbers.  First on November 14th, customers in the 203 area code became required to use the expanse code, 203, earlier all calls within the 203, whether local or long distance.

Now I know what I said makes no sense, so permit me explain for those of you who don't live here.

203 has ever been a pretty conflicted area code with serious identity issues. Sometimes it's local, sometimes it's long distance. And there'south really no fashion to know which is which, considering it'due south not just based on where the recipient is located. In fact, sometimes it'southward both at the same time. I have clients who have business organisation phones and cell phones, all inside the 203 area code, but the cell phones are sometimes local while the business phones are long distance.

Have whatever of you ever encountered an surface area code like this?

There must be others, although I ever thought all the calls within an expanse code would be local calls. In my experience, living at various times in suburban New York, suburban New Jersey, San Diego, CA and Manhattan, I have never encountered an area code that could be both local and long distance inside the area code, and especially within such a small geographic area. (I could empathise, for instance, if all of Montana shared an area code that included local and long distance. Only Fairfield County, CT? Y'all've got to be kidding.)

I've lived in Connecticut for 5 years now, and worked here for 10, and then I've made my uneasy peace with the split up personality of the 203.  Likewise, the "locals" seemed to take information technology in stride, chalking upward my frustration to my lack of geographic awareness. After all, how could I not know that Weston is a long distance 203 but Wilton is non, and Shelton is long distance from my office, but not from my home fifteen miles away.

Merely this nigh contempo change has the natives up in arms, so that must mean information technology's really bad, fifty-fifty by Connecticut standards.

Yous see, now every call needs to accept a 203 put in front of information technology, but not every call gets a 1 before the 203. And that'due south what's causing the trouble.

The reason for the area code alter is pretty clear: to adapt the growing need for more phone numbers, Connecticut is adding a new surface area code, 475, to the 203 area. You tin read the public announcement by the State of Connecticut'southward Department of Public Utility Control here.

And the need to use 1 or not to use ane is also pretty articulate: local calls are still local calls. A prefix of one denotes long distance. And it matters because there are cost differences between local and long altitude, of grade. At to the lowest degree on blowsy land line systems.

So, technically, the change is pretty small-scale, right? In the past, within 203, you dialed ane-203 for long distance, and nothing for local. Now, you lot punch 1-203 for long distance, and 203 for local.

It should be a pretty simple alter to adapt to. And yet it's got people slamming phones and cursing throughout the day at the those countless, annoying messages:  "We're sorry. You lot must dial a one and the surface area code before making this phone call." or the dreaded "Hey, Moron, this telephone call cannot be completed every bit dialed. Practice not include a ane for local calls. What are you, from New York?"

Talk nigh a frustrating and inescapable customer experience.

Speed dials on office phones accept to be reprogrammed. And then do faxes. Employee home phone number lists have to be updated, as exercise personnel records.

One of my coworkers has a 203 based jail cell phone. He says he has to reprogram the numbers in his phone to include a 1 or not, and it's non based on where he lives, just where he activated his phone, in improver to where the number is located. (My prison cell started as a 917 out of NYC, then 203 has ever been long distance and automatically gets a 1, and then I'm ahead of the game on that i.)

You'd think I'd exist enjoying this. All those people who were unmoved past my phone frustrations are now plagued with their ain.

And all the same I go admittedly no joy whatsoever from their angst.

Considering I'm way too busy being frustrated on my own. That elementary change now means that every call is 203, simply only some get a i.  I've got a 50/50 shot at beingness right, but for whatever reason, I'm guessing incorrect way more than l% of the time.

As I see it, the trouble isn't really about the modify. The problem has been there all along, thanks to the schizophrenic nature of the 203 area code.  At that place must be a reason. Is information technology based on square miles of coverage? Is it based on greedy municipalities and usage taxes? Is it a 19th century legacy of a long forgotten battle between local phone systems that combined in some satanic mega-merger?

In other words, can someone out at that place please explain to me why the 203 area code is just so messed upwards?

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Source: https://cansomeonepleaseexplain.com/2009/12/23/were-sorry-your-call-cannot-be-completed-as-dialed/

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