17325551212
Wednesday, 25 July 2007 09:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pneFor some bizarre reason, when Stella called me just now on my cell phone (O2 Germany network), the number appearing in the display of my mobile phone was not "Zu Hause schnurlos" (an address list entry) but 17325551212—which, I suppose, is Directory Inquiries for area code 732 in New Jersey. Bizarre.
After googling a bit, 17325551212 appears as an example telephone number showing the expected format of a phone number in an email-to-fax gateway and in a presentation on SIP for VOIP.
At a guess, it's the second one that's significant: someone implemented some VOIP service somewhere without configuring it properly and instead transmits the example number from the documentation somewhere rather than the real number.
Why the person creating the presentation/documentation used that particular number as their example, I have no idea. (Perhaps they lived in the 732 area code?)
So I'm guessing that when someone tries to call you using Voice-over-IP (deliberately or because some telephone carrier along the way uses VOIP) and they pass over a broken phone system (one that hasn't been configured properly), you get the example phone number rather than the real one.
no subject
Date: Friday, 17 August 2007 15:09 (UTC)i'm from germany too. Today, 17.08.2007 11:24 "17325551212" called my. i took the phone. There was no sound, only noise (german: rauschen). Then i hung up.
A few minutes later i got an sms from +4917325551212. It was the standard sms you get after missed calls (i have O2 mobile): Anruf-Info: 017325551212 hat versucht Sie anzurufen (17.08. um 11:24 Uhr) * Diese SMS ist für Sie kostenlos.
When i try to call back the Number, the nice woman voice tells me: The number you have dialed is not assigned.
?!?
no subject
Date: Friday, 17 August 2007 18:20 (UTC)That's interesting -- I've never seen the German +49 prefix in front of that number.
017325551212
and I haven't seen this number before, either.
Thank you for your comment!
I still wonder what is misconfigured where that results in this number...