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10-digit dialing is a nuisance in Canada too, where British Columbia and Alberta customers were told to dial the area code for every call.
Verizon FiOS’ “digital phone” product is a far cry from Verizon’s traditional landline service. Some central New York customers now getting hooked up to the fiber-to-the-home service report they are frustrated because they have to dial an area code for every phone call, even those to friends and neighbors right next door.
Verizon told WSYR-TV that unlike traditional landline service based in your neighborhood, Verizon FiOS phone service is, in fact, a nationwide Voice Over IP (VOIP) service, and uses servers across the country to process phone calls. Although many traditional VOIP services have since learned ways around the area code limitation, Verizon has not made a similar effort to allow customers to pre-designate an area code. That would permit Verizon’s servers to assume any seven digit number dialed was within a particular area code and complete the call accordingly.
Instead, Verizon advises customers to learn how to use the included “speed dial” feature to make dialing more convenient.
Verizon’s competitors, including companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable are quick to point out seven digit dialing is available from them, except where multiple overlaid area codes in the same geographic area exist. So far, parts of western and central New York have endured area code splits, but for now each service area maintains just a single area code.
[flv width=”400″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Dialing area code for Verizon FiOS 1-25-12.mp4[/flv]
WSYR in Syracuse answers viewers’ suggested stories. Today, it’s about why Verizon FiOS customers are forced to dial 10 numbers for every phone call. (1 minute)
Well, I can see that being a tad annoying, but you’d get used to it pretty quickly I imagine.
To be honest, in this age of cellphones and out-of-state travel, I find myself dialing the area code 99% of the time without thinking about it…
Canadians have this too in the National Capital, and we got used to it. i barely remember the days of dialing seven numbers instead of ten!
Interestingly the callerID for my local calls come up w/ 7 digits. It irritates my wife who uses the phone’s memory to callback, and low and behold Verizon says no go. It has gotten irritating enough I have considered dumping it and moving to my primary VOIP provider who does allow all of these items and more, however Verizon wants to charge me more for the double play than my triple play. So I guess a call to Time Warner is in order 🙂 Just recently the double plays have gotten competitive since who really needs a landline?
I been 10-digit dialing for years. I find it annoying when I have to switch back to last century seven digit making local calls on Old Fashion landline.
I live in CT and we have had to dial area codes before numbers for about 2 years now.
Maryland has had 10 digit dialing for over a decade now, it started while I was still in High School. And as others pointed out, if you have a cellphone, chances are you’re dialing 10 digits more often than not anyway. I have a pretty hard time getting up in arms over this, given how common it is.
A relative of mine who was hooked up with FiOS back when Digital Voice was new fell into this issue. I don’t believe they laid out that they were being moved from Copper POTS to a Digital Voice solution, but they eventually figured out that for whatever reason, their phone was set to do 10-digit dialing. They called up Verizon a few days later and had 7-digit dialing enabled, which I believe resulted in them getting moved from Digital Voice back to a traditional PSTN. I know some phones these days have an auto-dial feature for area codes, where simply… Read more »
Verizon has to build their customer base to be able to afford executive salaries such as Lowell McAdam who went from 7 plus million last August to 23 plus million in less than a year. Unbelievable but true. Hope he has enough change to buy his neighbor, Chris Christie a few dozen donuts. I called Verizon to remove the EPIC channel and got taken when the rep told me he could save me money with a renewal of my Triple Bundle, next thing I notice is the area code requirement for local calls. It was the next day and I… Read more »
This is complete BS. If Verizon wanted to they could offer 7-digit dialing.
I also have an Ooma IP line and it has 7-digit dialing. Ooma is also a Nationwide IP phone network.
My Time Warner phone service also offers 7 digit dialing. In fact a lot of smaller Voice Over IP phone companies also offer it with a simple timeout — it is assumed anytime a customer dials only 7 digits, it is in fact a local number, and processes the call accordingly.
This is not rocket science.