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

[Peter Beckman]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Jay Hennigan wrote:

> 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.

  Exactly this.

> 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.

  The goal is for the library to offer choices made by the implementor to
  decide what is best for the end user.

  A US-only or North American-only App or Website would use the National
  Format, (NPA) NXX-XXXX or NPA-NXX-XXXX.

  Apps that span countries, such as North America, Central America, South
  America, Europe, Asia, etc, would use the International Format.

  The problem is that the International Format provided by libphonenumber
  for NANPA, Ecuador, and Argentina, are a hybrid of International and
  National format, rather than following the International ITU convention of
  only using number groupings and spaces with the leading plus sign.

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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                https://www.angryox.com/
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