Posted on 07/20/2011 6:44:18 PM PDT by jocon307
You probably dial a few of them every day, but do you ever stop and think about the history behind a phone number? When were the first numbers introduced? How did you end up with a particular area code?
We’ve got the answers to these quandaries and more in our collection of 10 fascinating facts that you might not know about the common phone number.
(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
VI6, Victor 6
My dating was so successful that I moved into my own apartment during high school.
“The Office” did just that - they revealed a phone number on one episode, and if you called it, you heard a recording of Dwight advertising his Camaro for sale.
Re: Running out of numbers.
Actually, number portability did a lot to free up nmmbers. In the late 90’s and before, number blocks were assigned to a specific carrier. They were assigned in 10,000 number blocks. All switch software recognized this. However, it was very wasteful due to so many unused numbers in a block. The carriers dictated who got what numbers. Today, if you moved from, say, Rochester NY to NYC, you can take your old phone number with you. Prior to NP, that number blonged to Rochester Telephne and that was that. Virtually millions and millions of numbers became available because of NP.
Nowadays, wireless has taken over and there is very little danger in the US of having to go to 12-digit translation on landline phones.
Good point.
We also settled on ‘1’ because we were the biggest dog in the pack!! We (the US) sort of wrote the script for the international dialing codes back in the day.
I still remember my dad’s old office number. Melrose (ME)4-3245. Back then you could just dial 0 and say it to an operator.
Today, I don’t know anyone’s number(I still remember the old out of service/reassigned numbers). I can just hit and hold home on the iPhone, and voice control comes up, and you tell it to call John Doe mobile, and it does.
It’s a blessing and a curse. But it works, and quite well.
Thank you for playing! You win! :)
“I never personally spoke to a male operator though I suppose there were some”
I remember my mom telling me that the phone companies were very leery of male operators. They were afraid that if things got dicey the men would lose their cool and curse out the callers.
I have no idea if this was based on actual experience or just fear.
Yet I think we can say that telephone operator jobs were area that moved women into the vanguard of technological jobs.
I wonder if anyone has studied this, and NO I do not want to or mean to sound like some women’s studies awful person here!
Very cool. My grandma’s phone will always be the ‘real phone’ to me.
Of course, the invention of the cordless phone is one of the greatest things evah! Right up there with the TV remote control.
‘By order of the Prophet we ban that Boogie Sound!’
*SMIRK*
LOL! I split my time...home and my other address...1974 Plymouth Gold Duster.
“Telcom lore is a lot of fun and more arcane than people know”
I know that in NJ at least there are a bunch of “telephone pioneer” clubs, I guess they are made up of folks that were in “telecom” before it was “telecom”!
I totally agree with you. I also get bothered by how often people will dry-swallow medication in the movies. I mean, get a drink to wash it down. And how many main characters are named Jack or Jake in movies these days? Probably about 80%?
‘By order of the Prophet we ban that Boogie Sound!’
LOL! It IS a rocking tune!
A friend of mine owned a property in rural Ontario and had a party line there in the late 1980s. The telcos recycled the technology and packaged it as “distinctive ring” where an customer could have multiple phone numbers on a single line.
MI8 1578 I was 9. 73 now. San Francisco, CA, Church St., near 28th.
Perhaps they should reserve 867-5309. :-)
Hey, that was my parent’s phone number too. This was 1951 in SW Virginia.
BTTT
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