Dialing Standards - 10 Digits and Done

Everyone once had a 7-digit phone number because when you called someone in the same town, you only had to dial the 7-digits (7D), not the Area Code (AC).  But our sphere of calling grew beyond our local town and long distance (LD) calling became common.  So our AC suddenly become a core part of our phone number, 10 digits total.

Then the rules started changing by locale.  Some places you could just dial 7D to call your neighbor or dial 1 first.  Sometimes you got that annoying recording "It is not necessary to dial 1 before calling this number".  Well if you know I don't need it, ignore it.  Some locales allowed you to use the AC, some disallowed, some were OK with either way.

Today I find that in most locales, you need to use the AC + 7D for all calls, even next door.  The 1 before seems optional and in most cases is best left off.  Although I have been to some rural areas that still require only 7D for local calls.  I think we're coming out of the darkness of this phone dialing chaos and it is time for standardization.

Every phone has a AC + 7D.  The preceding 1 is not needed.  The phone carrier will bill you accordingly if your call is considered local or LD.  Every call dialed should be a standard 10 digits: AC + 7D.  Do we really need to suffer through archaic and inconsistent dialing rules in this day and age?  10 fingers, 10 toes, 10 digits in your phone number.

When you go international, the rules change again, but at least the prefix to dial international is "011".  But even that needs standardization.  Some country codes are 2 digit, some are 1.  There's always that (0) in the phone number that you're not sure if you should dial.  But standardizing the world phone system will probably take longer.

Lastly, we need a new word instead of Dial.  Rotary phones are not coming back and the dial is a lost concept on today's population.  Press and Touch are ok for inter-call instructions, "Press 0 for a representative", "Touch 1 for English".  Maybe Call is simple enough, "Call 800-555-1212 for information".