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[Chie]

Have you never called a friend on their regular number only to be told, "I'm on a beach in Dubai"? I'm going to have to guess no.

That's what global roaming is, Chie.

*facepalm*

Okay. I was wrong.

I might be better informed had the media taken time to discuss the issue instead of feverishly anticipating what sort of new security measures may be introduced in light of the plot almost straight away.

[Gavin Scott]

Have you never called a friend on their regular number only to be told, "I'm on a beach in Dubai"? I'm going to have to guess no.

That's what global roaming is, Chie.

*facepalm*

Okay. I was wrong.

I have huge respect for a man who can admit that.

I might be better informed had the media taken time to discuss the issue instead of feverishly anticipating what sort of new security measures may be introduced in light of the plot almost straight away.

Umm... *respect diminishing*

You might have been better informed if you'd asked someone about international dialling, or browsed onto Orange's website or something. Its not really the BBC's fault, is it?

Its totally fine not to know everything about everything. Who does? Its the height of hubris for anyone to think that they do - or worse, claim that the facts are less important than what they believe to be the truth.

[Chie]

You might have been better informed if you'd asked someone about international dialling, or browsed onto Orange's website or something. Its not really the BBC's fault, is it?

In my day you had to dial code before the number. As I know nothing of global roaming, there was no reason to suspect things have changed. It is the sort of thing you need informing about, otherwise how are you supposed to know?

To be honest Gavin, this argument became stale days ago, and I don't think either of us are ever going to fully understand the other's point of view.

[Gavin Scott]

You might have been better informed if you'd asked someone about international dialling, or browsed onto Orange's website or something. Its not really the BBC's fault, is it?

In my day you had to dial code before the number. As I know nothing of global roaming, there was no reason to suspect things have changed. It is the sort of thing you need informing about, otherwise how are you supposed to know?

To be honest Gavin, this argument became stale days ago, and I don't think either of us are ever going to fully understand the other's point of view.

I do understand, I just don't agree, that's all.

Although I don't understand you saying, "in my day". I'm 38, and I've only ever needed a country code when dialling from a landline to a landline.

[Chie]

Although I don't understand you saying, "in my day". I'm 38, and I've only ever needed a country code when dialling from a landline to a landline.

Roaming didn't exist when I used to make regular mobile to mobile calls to the US about six years ago.

[Sput]

This sounds like a job for NICK HARVEY

[Gavin Scott]

And Mike Robb

[Pete]

Roaming didn't exist when I used to make regular mobile to mobile calls to the US about six years ago.

Roaming existed and was well known about when I called home from my school trip to France when I was in third year, which would be, erm, 2002ish

[Chie]

Interesting.

[cdd]

Worldwide roaming has existed for ages, dual-band phones that can roam to Europe have similarly been commonplace for about a decade, tri-band phones that can roam to further locations e.g. USA commonplace since about 2005.

[dosxuk]

There was plenty of roaming going on at the Olympics in Athens, erm, six years ago.

From a UK based phone, we had to add the UK dialing code (+44) to call other UK based mobiles, even if they were on the other side of a fence in Greece. To dial greek numbers we didn't need a dialing code. For people ringing us from the UK they didn't need an international prefix, but those dialing in Greece did.

This is the same situation I'd experienced since I first took a mobile abroad in 1999.

(More interestingly in Athens was our mobiles which were provided by the Host Broadcaster, which all had a four digit number, so to call within the crew, we only had to dial those four digits rather than the long number the phones normally had.)