"athletic runners. Used with the catchphrase ""Got Your Number!"", the runners' characters featured in a high-profile advertising and PR campaign leading up to deregulation in August 2003, when the original 192 directory number was switched off. This slogan has fallen into disuse by the marketing department of 118 118 because of the expansion of service beyond directory enquiries alone, but has lived on in the minds of the public. The use of the runners' characters is particularly noted for the legal action threatened, but never acted on, by 1970s record-breaking runner David Bedford. 118 118 responded to this by stating"
"118 118 (UK) 118 118 is the UK telephone number for a US owned directory enquiries provider. Once wildly popular for its advertising featuring two runners, the service has experienced a dramatic decline in calls due to easily accessible information via mobile devices. Calls are answered from call centres in the Philippines, with some administration in Cardiff, Wales and other management offices in London that provides telephone numbers, given subscriber name and address, and answers general questions on any subject. 118 118 started operation in December 2002. In September 2013 the company started 118118Money, a provider of unsecured personal loans."
"state call costs resulted in a fine for the 118118 service. In 2017, soaring call costs for directory enquiries services including 118118 and 118500 prompted an Ofcom review of 118 services. 118 118 (UK) 118 118 is the UK telephone number for a US owned directory enquiries provider. Once wildly popular for its advertising featuring two runners, the service has experienced a dramatic decline in calls due to easily accessible information via mobile devices. Calls are answered from call centres in the Philippines, with some administration in Cardiff, Wales and other management offices in London that provides telephone numbers, given"
"013 for local calls, 0175 for other national calls, and 0103 for international. The two domestic numbers have been replaced with 1223, while 0103 has been replaced with 1225. Other numbers for directory assistance, often with a call connection option, exist depending on the carrier. 0011 was initially the code for the operator, which later became the international exit code. 014 was originally the number for the time, (later 1104), which was changed to 1194 in 1976. 0176 was previously the reverse-charge call operator, which has been moved to 12550. Alternatively 3rd-party companies exist. See Up to this time, the"
"rate numbers, the usage of 118 xxx directory enquiry numbers was regulated by ICSTIS (later PhonepayPlus). In 2003, the 0908 number range came into use, as 0909 was now almost fully allocated. In 2003, Oftel published a proposal to create a National Telephone Numbering Plan. This draft plan proposed changing the names of many areas from whatever name BT had previously used. Following responses from BT, C&W and others, the final plan was published with a number of amendments incorporated, followed by a minor revision a few weeks later. A few months later, the data and the responsibility for maintaining"
"was used until at least the 1960s, and in some cases (the Pacific Northwest, for example) until the mid-1980s. Until the early 1980s, 4-1-1 and 1-1-3 calls were free in most states. In the United States and Canada, Directory Assistance was historically a local function, and most companies updated listings at their directory assistance centers almost daily. Callers would dial 4-1-1 or 1-1-3 for fast, efficient, and accurate service. When long-distance numbers were needed, prior to the full introduction of direct-dialed long-distance service, callers would call either 4-1-1 or ""0"" (Operator) and request a free long-distance connection to the directory"
"the 03 numbering range was originally used for calls to Great Britain, including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, with the Irish prefix 030 replacing the UK trunk code 0. Calls to British cities using the Director telephone system were also possible using shorter codes: When London was split into two area codes, 071 and 081 in 1990, 031 was replaced with the codes 03071 and 03081 respectively. Use of the 03 range for this purpose was discontinued in 1993, when the international access code changed from 16 to 00, with calls to Great Britain (but not Northern"
"0. The following list includes this national trunk access digit when it must be dialled before the number. 066, 084 and 087 are often used by scammers, because they are easy and cheap to register and make identification very hard. Previously, 06-0, 06-1000 and 06-4 were used for toll-free numbers, 06-8 for ""shared cost"", 06-9 for premium rate, and other 06-numbers for mobile numbers. 0011 and later 06-11 was used for emergency services before this changed to 112. 09 was used as the international access code before this changed to 00. Since the reorganization of the telephone system in 1995,"
"N11 code An N11 code (""N-one-one"") is a three-digit telephone number used in abbreviated dialing in some telephone administrations of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). N11-numbers are used to access to special services. For example, The designation for special use in the NANP prevents their use as area code or central office prefix, eliminating nearly 8,000,000 telephone numbers from assignment. The assigned use of each N11 can vary for the various countries included in the NANP, but 9-1-1 is mandated in the United States and Canada, while the availability of the other N11 codes varies by location. 7-1-1 and"
"(area code) 114 is dialed for directory assistance in that area code. In Ethiopia, 8123 is dialed for directory assistance. In Israel, 144 or 1344 is dialed for directory assistance. In the Philippines, 187 is dialed for PLDT and Digitel subscribers. In Taiwan, directory assistance is available by dialing 105 from mobile phones, or by dialing 104 from landline phones. Directory assistance In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory enquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity. Directory assistance systems incorporate a wide range of automation to"
"numbers corresponded as follows: The three character codes were dialled after an initial '0' which gave trunk access. For example, the code for Bath was BA5, which was dialled as 0225. The rotary dial included the corresponding letters next to the appropriate digits. In six metropolitan areas around major cities, groups of multiple exchanges operated in a director telephone system. The six cities were Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Manchester. In these areas the first three digits of the seven digit subscriber number was presented as letters chosen to represent the local exchange within the director area. For example,"
"numbers that can be accessed from any phone provider, these are 1223 for national directory assistance and 1225 for international directory assistance. Other directory service numbers are carrier specific and can only be accessed by customers of that particular provider, for example Sensis on 1234 is a premium operator-assist directory service that only certain Telstra customers are able to access. Other operator-assist directory services do exist, for example CallConnect on 12456 however these numbers are not guaranteed to be accessible from all phone providers within Australia. In the United Kingdom, directory assistance is called directory enquiries. Directory enquires is provided"
"The 22 April 2000 change also affected subscriber local numbers which gained an extra digit. ""0171-xxx xxxx"" numbers changed to ""(020) 7xxx xxxx"", while ""0181-xxx xxxx"" numbers became ""(020) 8xxx xxxx"". As a result of this history, there is now a widespread misconception that 0207 and 0208 are the dialling codes for parts of London. This was exacerbated when local numbers beginning 3 started to be issued. The reunification under a single code created capacity for approaching 100 million telephone numbers and, starting in 2005, subscriber numbers beginning with the digit ""3"" were issued alongside those beginning ""7"" and ""8""."
"directory enquiries provider that assists customers with telephone number enquiries and general queries. After the success of 118 118 in the UK, kgb launched 118 218 in France when the French market has been opened. Thanks to a very good advertising campaign, it became quickly and is still the most used directory assistance service in France with around 200,000 calls each day on the phone number. Its 118218.fr website was in the top 100 French websites based on traffic. In December 2008, kgb acquired Texperts, a United Kingdom-based firm, in order to benefit from their ""innovative software platform and industry"
"The traditional use of the office prefix 555 was for directory assistance. 555-1212 is one of the standard numbers for this purpose throughout the United States and Canada. Telephone companies began encouraging the producers of television shows and movies to use the 555 prefix for fictional telephone numbers by the 1960s. Two early examples include ""The Second Time Around"" (1961), which used 555-3485, and ""Panic in Year Zero!"" (1962), which used 555-2106. In television shows made or set in the mid-1970s or earlier, ""KLondike 5"" or ""KLamath 5"" reflects the old convention for telephone exchange names. Before ""555"" or ""KLondike-5"""
"were used in many countries, but were phased out for numeric systems by the 1960s. In the United States, the demand for telephone service outpaced the scalability of the alphanumeric system and after introduction of area codes for direct-distance dialing, all-number calling became necessary. Similar developments followed around the world, such as the British all-figure dialling. In the United States, the most-populous cities, such as New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago initially implemented dial service with telephone numbers consisting of three letters and four digits (""3L-4N"") according to a system developed by W. G. Blauvelt of AT&T in 1917."
"by a variety of different companies, with a variety of call charges, each company reached by dialling a six-digit number beginning with 118. These companies supply information from the Operator Services Information System (OSIS), which is run by Directory Solutions, a division of BT Wholesale. OSIS accepts updates from telecoms providers seven days a week, and supplies that information to the enquiry companies six days a week. There are currently over 200 providers. Four of these, 118 118 (The Number), 118 212 (Maureen), 118 247 (Yellow Pages) and 118 500 (British Telecom) are among the most expensive and yet have"
"a seven-digit subscriber numberin other words, the local exchange codeswere represented with letters by way of a mnemonic. Each three-character code corresponded to an exchange within the London telephone area. The subscriber numbers were written, for example, as ""ABBey 1234"" and ""WIMbledon 1234"" or ""ABB 1234"" and ""WIM 1234"". By 1965, there were 350 local exchanges in London and the number of permutations that could be used for exchange names had been exhausted. With the change to all-figure dialling in 1966, the system of mnemonics was withdrawn and the three-digit local exchange codes of many subscribers were altered. The old"
"dialing, the precursor to customer DDD, cities throughout the country converted telephone numbers to a standardized 2L-5N format, e.g. EXchange 1-2345. San Francisco completed its conversion in December 1947. In July 1948, Pacific Telephone converted most of the cities on the San Francisco Peninsula. The company announcement, “most Peninsula cities now have exchange names” confirmed that the old four- or five-digit numbers had been converted to the seven-digit exchange format. Manual numbers were still used in some peninsula cities and were listed in the directory without the first two letters of the name capitalized, indicating a non-dialable point requiring operator"
"for directory assistance, along with other ""1-1-"" codes (""Repair"" was 1-1-4)., changes had to be made in the step-by-step areas. Initially, ""1-1-2"" was used temporarily as the prefix in most of these areas. To simplify long-distance calling it was desirable to change this to a ""1"". Some areas converted immediately to 4-1-1 for directory assistance and 6-1-1 for repair. Other areas retained 1-1-3 by installing what was known as ""double-header"" trunks, which actually connected the call to the long distance equipment and then ""snatched it back"" if the second digit was also a ""1"". The conversion proceeded as follows in"
"4-1-1 4-1-1 is the telephone number for local directory assistance in the United States and Canada. 4-1-1 is also commonly referred to as ""D.A."", ""Directory Assistance"", or ""Information"". Approximately 6 billion calls are made to 4-1-1 within the United States every year. 4-1-1 has been used since at least 1930 in New York City, San Francisco, and other large cities where panel and crossbar switching equipment installed by the Bell System was prevalent. However, in smaller Bell System cities and almost all areas served by GTE and other companies where step-by-step equipment was the norm such as Los Angeles, 1-1-3"
"now with a 1 prefix, e.g. 0541 is now 01541) remain unused and are available for future geographic expansion. The short number 0845 1888 was set aside in March 1998 for trials of the new NHS direct service with calls charged at the ""local rate"". At a later date, the number was changed to 0845 46 47. After the migration of geographic 0xxx area codes to new 01xxx codes on PhONEday (also 0xx → 01xx and 0xxxx → 01xxxx of course), some of the old area codes had started to be re-used for other purposes. For example, 0870 (Isle of"
"Whitehall 1212 Whitehall 1212 was the famous telephone number of Scotland Yard. It was introduced in 1934 and was used by the public to contact the London Metropolitan Police information room for both emergency and non-emergency business. With the introduction of the 999 number for emergencies in 1937, ""Whitehall 1212"" (dialled as ""WHI 1212"") remained in use for non-emergencies until the 1960s and the introduction of all-figure numbering. The switchboard number for New Scotland Yard became ""020 7230 1212"", and the last four digits of the telephone number for several other Metropolitan police buildings are ""1212"". Since 2011, the official"
"Ltd paid a reported £2 million to acquire it. 118 118 is primarily seen as a directory enquiries service, but provides a wider range of options, not only providing numbers to users but also train times, cinema listings and directions. The company offers several options, including ""no frills one search"" services on 118 811, charging a fixed-rate £1.00 to a free-of-charge ad-funded service on 0800 118 3733. 118 118 has also launched a subscription service app which costs £2.48 a month for unlimited calls to the number, or £4.98 a month for unlimited calls and connections. Calls to 118 118"
"services including 118118 and 118500 prompted an Ofcom review of 118 services. Some directory enquiries services stand accused of inappropriate methods of promoting their services, effectively scamming people into calling. Various unallocated geographic and non-geographic numbers play an announcement directing callers to call a particular directory enquiries number for help. People may hear this message when they mis-dial a wanted number or may appear to have missed a call from the unallocated number and hear this message if they call back. Some services donate part of their income to charities, such as animal welfare and football clubs. In mainland China,"
"'a' is mostly 0 or 1, so far). In all of the other areas, old National Dialling Only 0xxxxx and 1xxxxx numbers were migrated to new 0aax xxxx and 1aax xxxx numbers. The migration from old to new numbers was as follows: The following changes were made to non-geographic numbering ranges to bring them in the 08xx special services range. The 0500 (Mercury FreeCall) code remained in use after The Big Number Change, but no new numbers were allocated after 28 April 2001. It was ceased on 3 June 2017 with numbers transferred to 0808 5xx xxxx equivalents. The 0800"
"numbers commencing with digits that do not fit their original 1960's geographical districts. Having completed the switchover to numbers rather than letters, the six British cities on the Director system were first given access to transatlantic dialling in 1971 which enabled callers from Manchester to ring directly to any US mainline number by prefixing the call with '0101'. International Direct Dialling (IDD) was not made available nationwide until 1982. Despite the fact that the concept did not really take off at the time, 'Confravision', the world's first public bothway television system, allowed conference facilities to groups of people in different"
"digit 5 has been reserved for VoIP numbers. Finally 7 is used for internet services such as virtual fax numbers and dial up internet access (""70...""). Numbers starting with the digits ""2"", ""6"" and ""9"" are currently unassigned and reserved for future purposes. In the past it was possible to omit the prefix when calling from a landline to another landline in the same area. The digit ""0"" was the trunk code and it had to be removed when calling from abroad. This changed in 1998, with a transition period lasting from 19 June to 31 December. The new dial"
"working"" equipment was installed at some manual exchanges so that the caller could dial all seven digits, and the required number would be displayed to the operator. In the United Kingdom, the first Director exchange in London, Holborn Tandem, was cutover in 1927; preceded by any necessary changes in the London area, e.g. changing some exchange names and making all local numbers (4N) 4-digit. As each digit represents three letters the same network cannot have exchanges called BRIxton and CRIcklewood, which both correspond to 274. In smaller director areas some A-digit levels were combined so that local director exchange would"
"non-emergency contact number for the Metropolitan Police has been 101. However, 020 7230 1212 is still available as an alternative number. Whitehall 1212 Whitehall 1212 was the famous telephone number of Scotland Yard. It was introduced in 1934 and was used by the public to contact the London Metropolitan Police information room for both emergency and non-emergency business. With the introduction of the 999 number for emergencies in 1937, ""Whitehall 1212"" (dialled as ""WHI 1212"") remained in use for non-emergencies until the 1960s and the introduction of all-figure numbering. The switchboard number for New Scotland Yard became ""020 7230 1212"","
"phone numbers with a first digit in range 2-8 are generally managed by Telecom. Phone numbers beginning with 9 are usually those from other companies, for example TelstraClear. These allocations were firm until April 2007, whereupon full number portability was introduced; numbers can now be moved between carriers. . There are currently no regions issued numbers starting with 1 - except for the national emergency services access number, '111'. There are five regional area codes in use for landline calls, For example, a domestic toll call destined for a South Island location requires the dial prefix '03', being domestic-long-distance +"
"beginning with a ""4"") invariably require the ""02"" city code. Until 20 July 2003 GSM networks used six-digit subscriber numbers in accordance with the limit of eight digits for the domestic part of a number. With the increase of subscribers (and an international requirement), all (except Vivacom, which started operations in 2006) acquired new access codes. On 20 July 2003, Mobiltel used three codes (""(0)87"", ""(0)88"", ""(0)89"") and Globul used two (""(0)98"" and ""(0)99""). When these limits were also to be overwhelmed, seven-digit subscriber numbers and single access codes per operator were introduced, hence M-tel reverted to 088 (+7 digits)"""
"numbers than those on UK phones) called for the creation of an alternative, modern system of numbering. Called All Figure Numbering, the first three letters of the exchange name (e.g. CENtral) were to be permanently replaced by digits (in this example: 236). The first six places to introduce the system were the Director cities including Manchester – the process began in 1966. London was allocated the simplest primary code of ‘01’. Manchester was then given a new dialling code of ‘061’, the number 6 corresponded with the letter ‘M’ on the dial (The 2 of Birmingham’s 021 corresponded with B,"