[VoiceOps] Help Requested: E.123 Intl Formatting in Google libphonenumber

Jay Hennigan jay at west.net
Thu Mar 3 13:04:17 EST 2022


On 3/2/22 20:46, Darren wrote:
> Why spaces for NANPA? This is very unusual. Is that written in a standard somewhere? I'm not sure on the other two but in the US there are users who actually would be confused seeing spaces.

Agreed. If the intent of E.123 is to format telephone numbers for human 
readability, it should do so in a manner that is consistent with the 
existing convention for humans in the country where the number exists.

For NANPA, the National format would be (NPA) NXX-XXXX or NPA-NXX-XXXX. 
If other countries typically publish phone numbers using other 
punctuation as separators such as dots or colons, then use those for 
that country's National format. For International, the use of spaces 
makes sense.

The ambiguity for NANPA is that it is country code 1 and the local 
convention is to use a leading 1 for "area code follows" to 
differentiate from a 7-digit local number in those locations where 
7-digit dialing is still in use. That ambiguity really doesn't affect 
the digits input, however. When dialed en banc such as on mobiles with a 
SEND button, the leading 1 can usually be omitted with no effect on the 
call going through.

If a NANPA resident sees a phone number with just spaces they're likely 
to assume that it's an international call.


-- 
Jay Hennigan - jay at west.net
Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
503 897-8550 - WB6RDV


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