Surely the delay thing is why most VoIP type systems accept something such as "#" as an "I've finished inputting my number, please dial it" indicator ?

Although we do operate a VoIP system, that's largely irrelevant, because our previous PBX (Ericsson MD110) had all the patterns configured into it as well, so we would have been in the same situation. Users don't expect to have to dial a # at the end of their number, and we shouldn't expect them to have to do so.

Is the 5 seconds tuneable ? "wait 5 seconds till the 5th digit has been entered then change this to 3 seconds till the 7th digit then change this to 1 second"

The 5-second delay is coming from TelstraClear.. so no, we can't tune it. They're waiting for another digit, and when I posted about last month, it was because TCL's pattern was actually incorrect, and was waiting for extra digits that would never come, resulting in an unncessary 5 second setup delay to a large number of 021 numbers. This has since been corrected. A number of PBX systems validate the numbers so that they can match and therefore route them down the most appropriate route. Our (Cisco) PBX comes with patterns for most countries, which simplifies the task of setting up a new system. While I agree NZ's plan is relatively simple, other countries are not, and that's probably the reason they do it that way. There is the possibilty that we could enable overlap sending.. which I believe means that you send each digit as it is dialled, rather than all at once in an ISDN SETUP message - as it gives the telco the option to send back 'more needed', or 'that's enough digits'.. but.. I'm reluctant to turn it on without some proper testing first. Thanks to Barry who found the info I needed, and finally, to those of you who do validate the numbers locally, and who were forced into silence before posting anything by Steve's helpful comments, here are the new patterns: 021 0221 XXXX 021 0222 XXXX I believe there may be more coming.