How long before we need to add another number to our phone numbers

[D20]

I was watching an old TV show and saw the telephone area code didn’t have a 1 on it and it got me thinking that I remember this was added because we were running out of numbers.

Just blocked yet another scammer phone call to my mobile and over the past month I’ve seen this activity ramp up and when I check on ‘who called me’ the landline number was only just created that day and already has two or three posts about it being spammy. How long before we run out of numbers gain due to this? They can’t recycle them because everyone has blocked them!

Surely, there's no need to create new landline numbers. Who's installing lots of new landlines?!

The calls are coming from landline numbers. Manchester and Liverpool ones specifically over the past month.

This.

People are using home phones less and less.

They get recycled even if they have been blocked. There's no central database of who has blocked what number!

From a purely mathematical point, you can have 9,999,999 landline numbers in the Manchester area code alone, so I suspect it will be a while before they have to worry about running out of numbers.

Most of these scam numbers are only used for a day or two. After a certain amount of time they'll just be recycled to someone else / another company.

We're likely never going to need to add another digit, we'll have stopped using phone numbers before then.

Aren’t landlines being phased out? My friend was telling me the other day she was getting rid of hers. I might look at doing the same the next time my internet/phone contract runs out.

We only needed to add the 1 to area codes because BT messed up the way numbers were structured and allocated in the first place. There are plenty of numbers left.

The idea of a physical dedicated phone line allocated to a property that delivers a low voltage in order to power the phone (just the bell in the old days) is being phased out but people will be able to keep their numbers if they wish.

I need a land line for my internet, but I don’t have to use the phone.

Most of them aren't actually landline numbers. They just spoof it to make it look like a genuine landline number so people are more likely to answer

U can cancel phone line at anytime... I thought you still needed it for broadband certainly gave the you g guy a laugh on phone apparently oops 😬

We had a spate of Manchester landline ones that lasted about a week, now it seems to be 07477 mobile ones that call, I just ignore them all, if it's that important they can leave a voicemail or text me

A landline was never required if you were using cable (eg virgin), broadband via 4g or 5g.
In fact we were using landline phone lines to provide landline phone service and broadband on the same physical connection and BT/openreach were getting paid line rental to maintain the network, as well as maintaining the old requirement to have 50volts available to make a bell ring. What's being phased out the ability to have a phone socket and be able to plug in a phone and have work. In future everything will be VOIP or mobile.

In a few areas we’ve had to dial the area code (from inside the area) because we were told numbers were in short supply - this was almost ten years ago but I’ve no idea if this had to be rolled out across the county since then. The maths or reasoning didn’t make sense to me then tbh.

lol when Charles from London has a very Indian sounding accent. I thought it was just routed through a recognisable number.

Most people who have a landline only have them because they need a number to connect to the internet. Will BT charge £20 plus for a landline when they go to VOIP in a few years? If they do then customers of BT will not be pleased as the phone will be over the internet and if their internet goes down then their so-called landline will not work.