Why is the telephone number stored as text on an access database?

Some telephone numbers starts with number 0 (zero) or the country code with + marks (If you type the full number properly). For instance a number like 0094111234567 or +94111234567. If this number is stored under the "Number" data type, two things can happen.

1. Default "Number" field does not support this size of data. You have to change the Filed Size to "Double" in order to accommodate this telephone number.

2. Zero (0) in the front will get removed automatically!

So To prevent these issues you can use the data type as "Text"

Hope this Helps!