PhONEday


PhONEday was a change to the telephone dialling plan in the United Kingdom on 16 April 1995. It changed geographic area codes and some telephone numbers. In most areas, a "1" was added to the dialling code after the initial zero. In Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, the area codes were replaced with new codes and the subscriber numbers gained an extra digit. The PhONEday changes also made provision for new ranges of subscriber numbers in those five cities. A £16m advertising campaign, and an eight-month period of parallel running during which old and new codes were active, preceded the change. PhONEday followed a change made in May 1990, when the old London area code 01 had been released from use, permitting all United Kingdom geographic numbers to begin with this prefix. Originally planned in 1991 to take place in 1994, in 1992 the change was postponed until 1995.
The PhONEday changes also released space for new geographic area codes beginning 02, which would come into use as part of the Big Number Change in 2000. The changes also allowed 10-digit numbers beginning 07, 08 and 09 to be used for mobile, non-geographic and premium-rate services, from 1997 onwards, with all remaining 9-digit mobile, non-geographic and premium-rate numbers from 02 to 09 being converted to 10 digits and moved into the 07, 08 and 09 prefixes in 2001.

Number changes

Additional "1"

On PhONEday, 16 April 1995, the digit "1" was added after the initial "0" to prefix all geographic area codes. For example, the code for Inner London changed from 071 to 0171 and the code for Reading changed from 0734 to 01734. Other examples were:
AreaNew numberingOld numbering
Coventry xxxxxx xxxxxx
Birmingham xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Cardiff xxxxxx xxxxxx
Ashford xxxxxx xxxxxx
Blackburn xxxxx or xxxxxx xxxxx or xxxxxx
Cromer xxxxxx xxxxxx
Castle Point xxxxxx xxxxxx
Buxton xxxxx xxxxx
Edinburgh xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Derby xxxxxx xxxxxx
Dundee xxxxxx xxxxxx
Evesham xxxxx or xxxxxx xxxxx or xxxxxx
Dumfries xxxxxx xxxxxx
Langholm xxxxx xxxxx
Glasgow xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Hull xxxxxx xxxxxx
Liverpool xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Lancaster xxxxx or xxxxxx xxxxx or xxxxxx
Hornby xxxxx xxxxx
Jersey xxxxxx xxxxxx
Luton xxxxxx xxxxxx
Chipping Norton xxxxxx xxxxxx
Manchester xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Maidenhead xxxxxx xxxxxx
Maidenhead 6xxxxx xxxxx
Magherafelt xxxxx or xxxxxx xxxxx or xxxxxx
Cookstown xxxxx xxxxx
Melton Mowbray xxxxx or xxxxxx xxxxx or xxxxxx
Malvern xxxxxx xxxxxx
Wigton xxxxx xxxxx
Brampton xxxxx xxxxx
Brampton xxxx xxxx
Slough xxxxxx xxxxxx
Southampton xxxxxx xxxxxx
Southend on Sea xxxxxx xxxxxx
Stoke-on-Trent xxxxxx xxxxxx
Uxbridge xxxxxx xxxxxx
Inner London xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Sevenoaks xxxxxx xxxxxx
Reading xxxxxx xxxxxx
Outer London xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
York xxx xxxx xxx xxxx
Tyneside/Durham/Sunderland xxx xxxx xxx xxxx

New short codes

Five new shorter area codes were introduced for cities that were running low on available phone numbers and a digit was prepended to each subscriber number.
CityNew numberingOld numbering
Leeds 2xx xxxx xxxxxx
Sheffield 2xx xxxx xxxxxx
Nottingham 9xx xxxx xxxxxx
Leicester 2xx xxxx xxxxxx
Bristol 9xx xxxx xxxxxx

This also affected some national dialling only numbers for those cities:
CityNew numberingOld numbering
Leeds0113 0ax xxxx0532 0xxxxx
Leeds0113 1ax xxxx0532 1xxxxx
Sheffield0114 0ax xxxx0742 0xxxxx
Sheffield0114 1ax xxxx0742 1xxxxx
Nottingham0115 0ax xxxx0602 0xxxxx
Nottingham0115 1ax xxxx0602 1xxxxx
Leicester0116 0ax xxxx0533 0xxxxx
Leicester0116 1ax xxxx0533 1xxxxx
Bristol0117 0ax xxxx0272 0xxxxx
Bristol0117 1ax xxxx0272 1xxxxx

International access

The international access code also changed on PhONEday, from 010 to 00, thus meeting the international call prefix standard set by the International Telecommunications Union.

Legacy

In cities that were running out of subscriber numbers, new sub-ranges beginning with a different initial digit to existing numbers started to be allocated. For example, in Sheffield when the 2xx xxxx numbers were exhausted, new numbers then began to be issued from the 3xx xxxx range. Similarly, newly allocated numbers in Leeds, Leicester and Bristol also came from the 3xx xxxx range but, in Nottingham, the new numbers instead came from the 8xx xxxx range. Less than a decade later, further new ranges were opened in most of these areas, but this time new Leicester numbers are in the 4xx xxxx range, new Bristol numbers are in the 2xx xxxx range, new Nottingham numbers are in the 7xx xxxx range and new Leeds numbers are in the 4xx xxxx and 8xx xxxx ranges.
CityNumber rangeUsage
Leeds--
Leeds 2xx xxxxNumbers transferred from xxxxxx
Leeds 3xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 1997
Leeds 4xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2010
Leeds 8xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2006
Sheffield--
Sheffield 2xx xxxxNumbers transferred from xxxxxx
Sheffield 3xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2004
Sheffield 4xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2009
Nottingham--
Nottingham 2xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2009
Nottingham 7xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2006
Nottingham 8xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 1997
Nottingham 9xx xxxxNumbers transferred from xxxxxx
Leicester--
Leicester 2xx xxxxNumbers transferred from xxxxxx
Leicester 3xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2004
Leicester 4xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2009
Bristol--
Bristol 2xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2007
Bristol 3xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 1997
Bristol 4xx xxxxNew phase of numbers, issued from 2012
Bristol 9xx xxxxNumbers transferred from xxxxxx

After PhONEday, further changes to geographic area codes were made in Reading three years later and in London, Southampton, Portsmouth, Coventry, Cardiff and Northern Ireland at the Big Number Change five years later.
The changes made at PhONEday were one step towards reorganising the numbering plan at a later date, so that the first two digits would indicate the type of service called. PhONEday had cleared area codes from 02 to 09 of all geographic allocations by converting 9-digit numbers to 10-digit 01 numbers. After PhONEday, all pre-existing 9-digit mobile, non-geographic, premium rate, personal and pager numbers from 02 to 09 remained in place. Those would be moved to new 07, 08 and 09 prefixes and converted to 10-digits in the Big Number Change in 2000. However, from 1997 onwards, all new numbers for those services were allocated with 10-digits and already conforming to the new number plan: mobile phones, personal numbers, pagers, local-rate non-geographic revenue-share, national-rate non-geographic revenue-share and premium rate. Gaps were left within each of those new 10-digit number ranges to allow for the older 9-digit 02 to 09 numbers to migrate in the Big Number Change. Freephone numbers were an exception. Older 9-digit 0500 and 0800 numbers, as well as newer 10-digit 0800 and 0808 numbers, all remained in use after the Big Number Change.