RE: telephone URLs, comments on draft-antti-telephony-url-04

I wasn't ever suggesting that the base could change. The only
issue is that you can set up a context "tel://1/650/812/" against which
local numbers "4365", "4333" could be resolved.

I think this is of marginal value, but on the other hand, a notation
that made it clear that "tel:12345" was somehow a relative name with
a missing component would be a _good thing_. And people are used to
"//" in URLs, they sometimes add them anyway
(I've seen mailto://masinter@parc.xerox.com even) , but getting folks
to add the "+" might be hard.
> They did see problems with the suggestion from you when the case happens
> that one number changes area code (or the area code disappears like in
> Denmark), i.e. that the base changes in the relative URL you are
> describing. 

I don't understand what the problem is. Could you explain the
"problems with the suggestion from me"?

If I say "base = tel://1/415/812/" and then it changes to
 "base = tel://1/650/812/" for some numbers and stays the same
for others (as happened), now I have to make some of the relative
numbers into absolute, and leave the rest relative. Why is that
more of a problem than having to change every number?

> It is definitely not the case that the base changes from one to
> another one the same way for several numbers at the same time.

I never claimed it was.

>                                                    It is, to
> use their wording, unlikely that the  base of phone numbers changes the
> same for all numbers in the same base, even inside a country code like
> Sweden.

Of course not; mainly the codes split.

> According to them, each phone number is individual, is allocated in blocks
> which have nothing to do with the area code or such, and each number is
> also changed individually when they need to change.

Yes, I didn't think so. I'm not sure what point you are making, though.

> It is also the case that some allocations (for example according to a
> proposal for a "411"-service within the global 118 number series in Sweden,
> which I think is stupid, but anyways) are hierarichal because of a
> _postfix_ and not prefix. The format for this number is 118yxx, where y='0'
> and y='5' is saved for national services, while the industry can ask for at
> most two numbers in this series for national and international services.

Then there is no short form. I'm not sure why this is a counterexample, though.

> Telephone industry is not at all the same as number allocation, which
> happens on local level within each country, and in some cases also in
> organizations like the EU.

I don't think that the proposal for telephone numbering form makes any
assumptions about the telephone industry.

Larry

Received on Tuesday, 30 June 1998 02:23:28 UTC