An exemplary extended dialing plan allows use of one or more special characters, such as the # digit and the * digit, as dialable digits. The telecommunications network receives a string of characters representing a destination address from a first communication device, for use in routing a communication through the network to a second communication device. The received string of characters includes a number digit in the first position in the string and at least one non-numerical special character in another position. The character string is received from the first communication device by the network, the character string is analyzed and used to route the communication through the telecommunication network to the destination address based at least in part on the character string with at least one non-numerical special character.