Telecommunications System & Management

Public Telephone Dialing Habits and Preferences

Abstract

Naveen Albert

We conduct surveys of the general populous in order to gauge current public sentiments with regards to telephone dialing habits and preferences. We analyze the results collected from these surveys in aggregate and compare them with each other. We observe that there continues to be a strong public favoring of traditional seven-digit dialing and that opposition to ten-digit dialing remains widespread. We additionally find that this continues to be the case in spite of proposals or implementations of public safety initiatives that have stipulated ten-digit dialing be required in certain circumstances. Our results concur with previous studies conducted in this domain that were conducted in the context of number relief, suggesting that historical trends, while potentially less pronounced than they once were, remain valid in the modern era.