It started as a printed book , than appeared the phone lines known as the  information numbers where someone can call to find out the contact information about a person , a institution , a shop or whatever you may need  . White pages are something similar but they also bring something new . They also contain web directories for private people . If you search someone by name , address , you may be able to find that person’s number . Keep in mind that you may not find a number because people have the option to decide if their number is public or private so that no one can find it . The problem is pretty simple when we talk about phone directory but when it turns to mobile cell phone directory things are different .  At the present , there does not exist such a directory as White pages but available with mobile cell phone numbers because the law gives the right to protect person’s privacy . Companies have made many efforts to try to please their clients demand and to have a cell phone look up service .

Especially if you use an Alltel Phone , you can find out the number you are looking for with the help of Alltel phone directory . If you try to find a cell number online on the supposed free websites , you will find out that such things do not exist . First , because the government regulations that do not allow the cell phone companies to list their clients’ numbers and second  because everybody is willing to maintain their privacy . As the time passes and more and more people are starting to use the cell phones and leave the old phone behind , it might be possible in the future to have a list with everyone’s cell phone numbers .



If you really want to find out someone’s cell number and you are willing to pay , there are solutions . Cell phone companies keep a database with all cell number phones and they sell the access to the database to companies that store the information in different sorts of phone books . If you want to have also access to it , you have to pay . In this way , works the Alltel phone directory . For example , if you want to find someone’s cell phone and you know that this person uses Alltel phone , then it would be really easy to find this person’s number in the phone book . The tariffs for the service can be per one time search or once you have paid a tariff you can look up a certain number of cell phone numbers or it can give you access to the database for a specific amount of time .



It seems that as time passes by and the technology develops and people start to switch from traditional phones to modern cell phones , there will also exist an improvement in this area of phone directories where you will be able to find a person cell phone number and not only the phone number .

A phone prefix is a number made from a combination of digits unique for every telephone service provider in each country in the world. Because of the variety of states and countries over the Globe it would not be enough if we all had the same phone prefix because then each of us would have a phone number made out of probably 20 - 30 - 40 digits and it would be kind of hard to remember your mother's cell number or even your own. So every country has a different telephone / cell phone number depending on the phone service provider you use. Every city has it's own area code, so callers inside the same city don't need to enter an area code, only the ones calling numbers located in other cities of the same country need to enter it.

An international prefixes table was made so anyone trying to call a person outside the country's borders would know what international prefix code and what mobile code to dial before the number of the person they want to call. Some countries have more than one telephone / cell phone network, so every network has to use a different prefix associated to their numbers. So for example let's say you live in the United Kingdom and if you want to call your uncle from Egypt and he has a Vodafone cell number, you need to dial the country's international access code that's +20, then the mobile prefix code "10" followed by his cell number. Note: the "+" is not dialed, it only signifies that first you must dial the international access code, so the number should look like this "20 XXX XXX XXX".



Typical United States dialing plans include:

• internal extension that consists of numbers made out of two, three or four digits

• local numbers that consists of seven or ten digits, the digit 9 may precede the number if required to access an outside line.

• long distance numbers made out of eleven digits, consisting of a 1, then a three-digit area code, then a seven-digit number; the digit 9 may precede if required.

• international numbers of any length starting with 011 and preceded once more by the digit 9 if required.

So every mobile network has it's own prefixes associated to their numbers, for example in Romania there are several mobile phone service providers like Vodafone, Orange, Zapp, Cosmote, RDS.Tel and some of them use more than one prefix for it's network. There is Orange with "74" and "75", Vodafone with "72" and "73", Zapp with "78", Cosmote with "76" and RDS.Tel with "77". The country international access code is "+40" so in order to call a person from Romania using Orange's services you need to dial the country's access code first, then the Orange prefix, then the number of the person you need to call. (e.g., 40 74X XXX XXX). If there weren't any country / network / area prefixes we would have a very hard time on calling anyone.