Autofill in area code?

[JDS (Jerome)]

I’m new to VOIP, when we were on copper lines we didn’t have to type in our area code so instead of typing 01865 523030, we would type in the suffix (523030) I think the PSTN knew which town we were in so automatically did it.

However now it won’t do that so whenever I dial a number I have to type the full number. Is there any way for me to configure my handsets or PBX to auto-fill in the prefix when I only type 6 numbers?

I don’t want it to put the prefix in front of another number if I dial a number outside that area because those numbers would be invalid.

[david55]

I assume they are still starting numbers with 1 and the NANP numbers are still 1NXXNXXXXXX format.

The best way is to canonicalise in the initial context, but I think that has to be done outside of the GUI. Otherwise you define outbound routes for 1NXXNXXXXXX and NXXXXXX with the latter preprending 1nxx where nxx is your actual area code, e.g. 1404 for Atlanta… You should be able to define rules in the phone that look for different numbers of digits after 1 and after other digits.

[dobrosavljevic (Igor Dobrosavljevic)]

@david55 has it pretty much right but to be precise, this is how an outbound rule looks on our system that does that for us (in the US).

You would change this setting in Connectivity -> Outbound Routes -> your route -> Dial Patterns

If somebody were to dial just the 7 digits for the phone number it’ll prepend the rest automatically and dial that number instead.

[Stewart1 (Stewart)]

As @dobrosavljevic said. However, it’s more complex in the UK because numbers are not all the same length. See the Format section of

Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom

Your Outbound Route could have these entries (simplified)
prepend: (leave blank), prefix: (leave blank), match pattern: 999
prepend: (leave blank), prefix: (leave blank), match pattern: 1X.
prepend: 01865, prefix: (leave blank), match pattern: NXXXXX
prepend: (leave blank), prefix: (leave blank), match pattern: 0X.

When you dial a local Oxford number, the third entry will prepend the 01865 for you. Other valid numbers will be passed through unchanged.

However, if when dialing a number, you want it to be sent to Asterisk as soon as the last digit is entered (without having to press ‘Dial’, ‘Send’ or ‘Call’, or wait for a timeout) you have to configure the dial plan in the device to know about the various formats.