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Telephone Number Weirdness

merriman_weir

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
May 7, 2009
Messages
392
This isn't particularly spooky or unearthly, no shadow people or Chinese lanterns, more of a very bizarre and unlikely coincidence concerning numbers, or rather, phone numbers. I'm one of those people that is utterly rubbish at remembering mobile phone numbers. I used to be great at land lines and can recite phone numbers I've not had to call for donkey's years, but mobile phone numbers just go over my head. Possibly because once they're in my address book I never see them again.

Back in Feb 2007, my partner bought me a mobile phone for my birthday as my previous phone was on it's last legs. The phone itself was great and just what I wanted apart from the network. It was tied into the Orange Network, which wasn't something I wanted as the pay as you go deals weren't so good at the time. My partner said she's pay to get it 'cracked' (or whatever you call it) and suggested I have an 02 sim card put in it as it was what she used.

Almost 3 years on, I'm still using that sim card and the associated number. Unlike my partner who is now on her third phone in as many years and has changed her sim card and her number God knows how many times.

A few days a go, she decided she needed to either get a new phone or get a new number as she wanted to 'lose' a whole heap of acquaintances who were getting a bit 'over-bearing'. Her father had changed phones about 6 months ago as his old phone was too fiddly for his big fingers and suggested that she took the sim card out of that phone as he'd not used any of the initial credit on it as he'd not been able to use the phone itself (which had been for him as a present by my partner's mother).

Still with me?

Anyway, I gave my partner my number to put into her address book and she sent me a text and I stored her number from there and thought nothing of it. However, today I realised I had no credit so I made a note of her number from my address book as I knew I would need to call her whilst I was out in the day. However, whilst I was doing that I also saw my own number.

Now, I've had my sim for the best part of 3 years from the centre of Manchester and my partner's father bought his sim less than a year ago from a different place entirely.

Obviously I'm removing all but the last digits purely for privacy reasons but her number is: XXXXXXXXXX8 and mine is XXXXXXXXXX9 with the 10 X digits being exactly the same! What are the odds of that?
 
Obviously I'm removing all but the last digits purely for privacy reasons but her number is: XXXXXXXXXX8 and mine is XXXXXXXXXX9 with the 10 X digits being exactly the same! What are the odds of that?
That's easy!

1 in 10^10 (ten to the power ten) or 1 in 10,000,000,000, or 1 in ten billion.

For comparison:
The term world population commonly refers to the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of 10 November 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.796 billion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
So the odds are pretty remote - you could have posted this on Coincidences instead:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9144
 
rynner2 said:
That's easy!

1 in 10^10 (ten to the power ten) or 1 in 10,000,000,000, or 1 in ten billion.

For comparison:
The term world population commonly refers to the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of 10 November 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.796 billion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
So the odds are pretty remote - you could have posted this on Coincidences instead:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9144

Hmm, not quite that easy, as mobile numbers are only selected from the 077XX, 078XXand 079XX ranges (although I believe 075XX is also in use now). Somebody else will have to do the maths on that one as I'm too lazy and/or stupid to figure it out. Still, that doesn't detract from it being a nice coincidence.
 
Dr_Baltar said:
rynner2 said:
That's easy!

1 in 10^10 (ten to the power ten) or 1 in 10,000,000,000, or 1 in ten billion.

So the odds are pretty remote - you could have posted this on Coincidences instead:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9144
Hmm, not quite that easy, as mobile numbers are only selected from the 077XX, 078XXand 079XX ranges (although I believe 075XX is also in use now). Somebody else will have to do the maths on that one as I'm too lazy and/or stupid to figure it out. Still, that doesn't detract from it being a nice coincidence.
I'll have a go, then!

As you say, Dr B, the first two digits are always 07, which mean that there are, at most, 10^8 (100,000,000) different combinations available for the first 10 digits of a mobile no. Added to that, the choice of 3rd digit is restricted to three or 4 numbers, not 10, so you're down to about 10^7.5 (30 million or so). That's still pretty long odds, granted, but once you factor in that O2 and others probably have a set series of numbers allocated to them en bloc, then the odds tumble a bit.

However, given that...
Now, I've had my sim for the best part of 3 years from the centre of Manchester and my partner's father bought his sim less than a year ago from a different place entirely
... I'd say that this is still a pretty mind-bending coincidence!
 
Cheers for the responses! As I said, it's hardly shadow people, dog heads, grey ladies and so on, but it's really thrown the pair of us. My partner is now talking in terms of 'how we were meant to be together' and I'm just boggled by the probability of it all. :lol: :oops:

What's strange is, whilst I opened this thread pointing out that I'm terrible when it comes to remember phone numbers, but now this has brought it into focus and I can't actually stop thinking or reciting these numbers.

I just thank Fort* that there wasn't a 23 in the sequence of numbers!




*Maybe I such contrive a 'Thank Fort For That!' meme?!
 
O2 have for some time now offered free sim cards to anyone who wants them. These arrive in batches of five and have consecutive numbers. Are you sure that your partners fathers phone sim didnt arrive in the same batch as the one you were given three years ago!
 
Sadly, I do not think it as remotely unlikely statistically as you'd hope.

Having worked for a company which sells phones, I encountered more than one staff member and customer who had a preference for certain sequences, so the "memorable" numbers are often cherry picked.

If you then work on the assumption that from this smaller subset of numbers, certain networks own certain groups (there used to be a way of knowing which network a phone was on by the first few digits, but since people can now move numbers between networks, this is now no longer reliable) - but still, the odds are that any number issued is going to be from the main block that service supplier has available.

If you then work on the assumption that people who actually keep hold of a phone/sim/number for any amount of time is quite low, the odds of the numbers either side of your own being returned to the pool for subsequent distribution is probably quite high, and more so every day.

I think a sim/number has to be unused for something like 18 months before the network consider it abandoned. In the days of pay as you go, I would expect numbers/sims to be abandoned quite often.

Of all my friends, I only know of one who has kept their number more than a few years, everyone else seems to chop and change regardless of the chaos it causes others. Ever had a "this is my new number" text with no name appended? Yes, me too. Everyone else chops and changes regular.


Whenever I have been given free sims, the ones I have almost always are sequential, which possibly means this is also how they are sent out to the stores.

But (and once again drawing on having worked in the industry), it seems to be not entirely uncommon for phone companies to randomise numbers sent out. Presumably because they don't want two consecutive customers buying consecutive numbers; would you want the person ahead or behind you in the queue to be able to work out what your number was? Paranoid, perhaps, but still true.

So you are left with the situation that the longer you keep hold of your number for, the more likely it is for one on either side to become available for sale. It's also quite possible if they are randomly distributed that it will end up in an area other than the one you are in.

So, unlikely? Yep. Very much so. Impossible? Dunno, what are the odds of both recent Euromillions tickets being from the UK? The odds probably aren't that unlikely, as there are less mobile numbers in the UK active at anyone time than people, surely?
 
Mobile phone number suspended after three users die in 10 years
A mobile phone company has suspended the number 0888 888 888 – after every single person assigned to it died in the last 10 years.
Published: 1:00PM BST 25 May 2010

The first owner Vladimir Grashnov – the former CEO of Bulgarian mobile phone company Mobitel which issued the number – died of cancer in 2001 aged just 48.

Despite a spotless business record there were persistent rumours that his cancer had been caused by a business rival using radioactive poisoning.

The number then passed to Bulgarian mafia boss, Konstantin Dimitrov, who was gunned down in 2003 by a lone assassin in the Netherlands during a trip to inspect his £500 million drug smuggling empire.

Dimitrov, who died aged 31, had the mobile with him when he was shot while eating out with a model.

Russian mafia bosses – jealous of his drug smuggling operation – were said to have been behind the killing.

The phone number then passed to Konstantin Dishliev, a crooked businessman, who was gunned down outside an Indian restaurant in Bulgaria's capital Sofia after taking over the jinxed line.

Dishliev, an estate agent, had secretly been running a massive cocaine trafficking operation before his assassination in 2005.

He died after £130 million of the drug was intercepted by police on its way into the country from Colombia.

Since then, the number is understood to have been dormant while police maintained an open file on Dishliev's killing and his smuggling ring.

Now phone bosses are said to have suspended the number for good. Callers now get a recorded message saying the phone is "outside network coverage."

A Mobitel spokesman would only say: "We have no comment to make. We won't discuss individual numbers."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/n ... years.html
 
rynner2 said:
A mobile phone company has suspended the number 0888 888 888 – after every single person assigned to it died in the last 10 years.

Does any culture have the number 8 as unlucky? I know it's the opposite in China.
 
OK, writing this down as it happened a couple of hours ago. Relative has my landline number saved on their landline phone.

I've had the same number for 20 years, no issues with it. Tonight, they called me using the stored fast dial thing for my number. Which they always use when calling me, apparently, no problems.

A young girl's voice answered that they had wrong number (seemed confused, or the way it was described to me). No young females in this house. Or anyone who sounds like one.

They called it again a few minutes later and got straight through.

Am sure there is a way that could happen but I dunno what it might be? Anyone here able to explain it? Can a stored number misdial?
 
Relative has my landline number saved on their landline phone.
Anyone here able to explain it? Can a stored number misdial?
(UK-specific device but similar elsewhere) If your relative's phone is still set to legacy 'loop disconnect dialling' (where despite having pushbuttons, it emulates the pulses sent by a traditional rotary dial phone), then yes, most-certainly, a stored (or last number redial) number could under conditions of poor phone-line state accrue some extra pulses, thus resulting in a random mis-dialled number.

Some modern-day home & office wired phones nowadays are MF dial only (evidenced by the skew-tone pseduo-musical sounds produced when numeric / star or hash buttons are pressed) but the majority of middle-aged wired phones still have a dial-mode select switch, with the selectable options "MF" or "LD".

If theirs does have this option, ensure the switch is set to "MF" and *not* "LD", to ensure more-reliable dialled-number resolution (this should really have happened back in 19-hundred-and-80-something, but better late than never....it all ends by 2025, so make the most of it).
 
(UK-specific device but similar elsewhere) If your relative's phone is still set to legacy 'loop disconnect dialling' (where despite having pushbuttons, it emulates the pulses sent by a traditional rotary dial phone), then yes, most-certainly, a stored (or last number redial) number could under conditions of poor phone-line state accrue some extra pulses, thus resulting in a random mis-dialled number.

Some modern-day home & office wired phones nowadays are MF dial only (evidenced by the skew-tone pseduo-musical sounds produced when numeric / star or hash buttons are pressed) but the majority of middle-aged wired phones still have a dial-mode select switch, with the selectable options "MF" or "LD".

If theirs does have this option, ensure the switch is set to "MF" and *not* "LD", to ensure more-reliable dialled-number resolution (this should really have happened back in 19-hundred-and-80-something, but better late than never....it all ends by 2025, so make the most of it).
Thanks, Ermintruder! That must be what happened. They sounded really shaken by it when they rang us a few minutes later. I can't remember how old their phone is but "middle aged" is probably right!
 
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