Given how ubiquitous phone numbers are and how long they've been around, it's surprising how many false assumptions programmers continue to make about

google / libphonenumber

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2021-08-04 07:30:03

Given how ubiquitous phone numbers are and how long they've been around, it's surprising how many false assumptions programmers continue to make about them.

Some people do not own phones, or do not wish to provide you with their telephone number when asked. Do not require a user to provide a phone number unless it is essential, and whenever possible try to provide a fallback to accommodate these users.

Some devices such as EFTPOS terminals, fax machines and mobile internet dongles may not support receiving calls. In addition, some people can not use their phones for phone calls. This may be permanent (such as a hearing disability), temporary (temporary hearing loss) or situational (when the user is in a noisy environment).

Tip: Make how you use phone numbers apparent to the user and give them the option to set their preference. Ensure that you look up this preference before attempting to communicate with the user.

It wasn't even that long ago that mobile phones didn't exist, and it was common for an entire household to share one fixed-line telephone number. In some parts of the world, this is still true, and relatives (or even friends) share a single phone number. Many phone services (especially for businesses) allow multiple inbound calls to or outbound calls from the same phone number.

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