Especially to reasonably allot international telephone numbers between various countries and cities of the world or to mobile phone operators the pone numbering plan is applied. That’s anyway wrong to mix international calling codes with numbering plans. There is a closed numbering plan existing in regions like Canada or North America. For closed numbering plan it is necessary that there are telephone numbers with fixed length territory codes.

There is also an open numbering plan working in a number of countries that haven’t determined it by now. In this numbering plan the size of the area calling code and local number can change. Dialing the telephone numbers assigned by this system you must be sure to always dial the digits of the local number, while the figures of the dialling code mustn’t be in any case applied.
It appears to be very much hard to standardize the system. Even though the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) attempted to bring in common rules of numbering plans and international calling codes, they still are various in various places. At first the Union offered the different countries to apply 00 as the international access combination. Still the offer was not binding for the countries so only several of them introduced the new international code, while the rest state members like Canada and the members of the North American Numbering Plan remained as they were. Mixed up? Try our brand reverse phone number!

The international numbering plan lets arrange country codes that mean the dialing code for one or a number of countries. The E.164 standard serves exactly for controlling country codes for international calls. It measures the general size of a full international telephone number. Anyway in every region the phone numbers are defined differently by local standards. Well, district area codes are classified into those that are with:

- A defined length, including e.g. 1 digit in Australia or 3 in Canada.
- Uncertain code standards. So in countries like Germany or Argentina the code varies between two and 5, on japanese isles – between 1 and 5 and in Peru the code takes from one to 2 units.

- The calling code incorporated into the number of the subscriber. It’s actively used in a number of areas like Norway. So are the pecularities of the so-called “closed” numbering plan. As for some regions, they use zero as a trunk dialing code. It’s popular in areas like Belgium and Italy, Poland, South Africa or some locations within the NANP.

The dialling code normally serves to define the cost of the call. It’s usually cheaper to call on the numbers with the same or adjacent calling code then on the numbers that have dialing codes of other lands.

But as in States the costs for home calls are defined by the state services while trunk calls are defined by competition, it happens so that local calls have to be less cheap.

But there are some places in United States where dialling codes cover a really vast area. In this case various costs are applied depending on the distance between the subscribers.

The rate centers generally define prices for territory sections measured in parts of nearly six, 12 or more miles. However, as the home call services were just deregulated things changed.

It’s now becoming popular among the people to use the so-called “all-you-can-eat” plan (an assigned price of about 30 dollars per month as fixed for spring 2008 allowing to connect with any city of States).
In a number of countries mobile phone systems use special dialing codes. As well they are applied for some exceptional rates, free, premium ones.

There as well can be different particular occasions. For example in countries like Egypt calling code evaluate nothing as the costs stay similar for the whole territory and in Great Britain the area dialing code is divided into 2 segments each with its cost.