australian system.. (Score 0)

this has probably already been said (i really couldn't be bothered reading the entire thing...) but the us phone system must really, really suck. you lucky bastards have (so i hear) brilliant broadband infrastructure. ours sucks. the lack of cable tv during the 70s (as there was no boom like in the us) has meant that everything must be new - or use things like adsl (or whatever...). BUT for normal telephones...ours is the best. i never realised that you couldn't tell the difference between mobiles and landlines in the us...it's been like that since the beginning here. and number portability has been around for a while...carriers offer all sorts of incentives to swap now...like $100 worth of credit and whatnot. our numbering system had a small change in the past ten years: adding an extra digit to the front. it meant that there were millions more numbers, and that the system could contine to work well. now our numbers are country code: +61 (but you don't need this...although it appears on mobile numbers when you ring someone...) state code: 8 (well, that's the one for where i live...) area code: 332 (the exchange the call goes through) and then the final 4 digits: 9821 so that's [phone] ! or for normal usage 8332 9821 simple. mobile numbers are more criptic, but you can *always* tell if it's a mobile: they all start with 04x - isn't australia just great? ;] lololol.