WD> The North-American telephone companies are causing the problem as their
 WD> numbering-system is not ITU-compliant.

   No they are NOT! The simple reason for this is, that there ARE no
problems. It is virtually impossible to accidentally configure a mailer to,
at the same time,

  A) be able to call your uplink (required before you are even considered
to get a node number) and

  B) for some odd, still never ever reproducible, mistake start dialling
raw numbers from the nodelist.

   All this Aussie 000 problem is nothing but a hoax. And I was even around
when it was born (it was originally caused by an Aussie sysop, Rick
something, that had got this stupid idea, that phone number processing was
based on node number). It has never, ever happened and it will never, ever
happen, that an Aussie node will start calling their emergency number,
unless deliberately making it do so. It's as simple as that!

   We have more than 20 years of fidonet experience to prove it. If it
never was a problem, in any way, when we got 1000 new nodes a month in the
mid 90s, it sure as hell will never be a problem in Z3 today, where they
never get more than something like one new node per year.

   C'mon Ward, give it up already! You are trying to beat life in a dead horse!

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