title: What datatype should be used for storing phone numbers in SQL Server 2005?
body: <p>I need to store phone numbers in a table. Please suggest which datatype should I use? 
  <strong>Wait. Please read on before you hit reply..</strong></p>
  
  <p>This field needs to be indexed heavily as Sales Reps can use this field for searching (including wild character search).</p>
  
  <p>As of now, we are expecting phone numbers to come in a number of formats (from an XML file). Do I have to write a parser to convert to a uniform format? There could be millions of data (with duplicates) and I dont want to tie up the server resources (in activities like preprocessing too much) every time some source data comes through..</p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions are welcome..</p>
  
  <p>Update: <strong>I have no control over source data. Just that the structure of xml file is standard. Would like to keep the xml parsing to a minimum.
  Once it is in database, retrieval should be quick. One crazy suggestion going on around here is that it should even work with Ajax AutoComplete feature (so Sales Reps can see the matching ones immediately). OMG!!</strong></p>