Why did Australias telephone numbers increase to 8 digits in length?
In recent years there had been a dramatic growth in Australia’s phone system, especially in rapidly growing areas like the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Sydney. With increased demand for additional phone services, fax machines, pagers and mobile phones, as well as new phone companies, Australia was running out of numbers. To remedy this, phone and fax numbers were given an extra one or two digits so that all geographic numbers have an eight digit number with a two digit area code. Special services such as ‘000’ emergency, ’13’ and ‘1800’ numbers and ’04’ mobile numbers were not subject to eight digit conversion. See 8-digit numbering.
