i am guessing you’re not from the US, and OOP is. in the US, first of all, a billion is 10^9. secondly, phone numbers here are typically 7 digits, with an additional 3 digit area code tied to a geographical region, the first digit of which can’t be a 0.
when i was a kid, before cell phones really took off, it was pretty standard to omit the area code, since we were usually all in the same area code where i lived, but since cell phones have become common, and people are likely to retain their phone numbers when they move, it has become much more typical to include the full ten digits, which would be at least 1.21 billion dollars, by american standards.
A billion being 109 is, at this point, universal. To my knowledge, only the very old in the UK still hold to the “long billion”.
I find that fascinating, because everywhere I’ve lived (and everywhere I haven’t lived but have had reason to be aware of the phone scheme), mobile phone numbers (which often aren’t formatted in the same way as landline numbers) are 10 digits and start with a leading zero.
Growing up, landlines usually didn’t include area code, and would be 8 digits, starting with a non-zero number. But adding an area code would mean adding 2 digits, the first of which is always 0.
So basically, if I see a phone number without a leading zero, I’m going to be very confused, unless I have reason to believe that it includes country code.
i am guessing you’re not from the US, and OOP is. in the US, first of all, a billion is 10^9. secondly, phone numbers here are typically 7 digits, with an additional 3 digit area code tied to a geographical region, the first digit of which can’t be a 0.
when i was a kid, before cell phones really took off, it was pretty standard to omit the area code, since we were usually all in the same area code where i lived, but since cell phones have become common, and people are likely to retain their phone numbers when they move, it has become much more typical to include the full ten digits, which would be at least 1.21 billion dollars, by american standards.
At least on my part, you guess correctly.
A billion being 109 is, at this point, universal. To my knowledge, only the very old in the UK still hold to the “long billion”.
I find that fascinating, because everywhere I’ve lived (and everywhere I haven’t lived but have had reason to be aware of the phone scheme), mobile phone numbers (which often aren’t formatted in the same way as landline numbers) are 10 digits and start with a leading zero.
Growing up, landlines usually didn’t include area code, and would be 8 digits, starting with a non-zero number. But adding an area code would mean adding 2 digits, the first of which is always 0.
So basically, if I see a phone number without a leading zero, I’m going to be very confused, unless I have reason to believe that it includes country code.