ATTENTION PAT... PLEASE DO NOT DISPLY my email address in any postings!!! NEITHER the "from" address nor the "reply to" address.
Mark Roberts wrote in his well documented summary of San Francisco/Oakland telephone history:
San Francisco/Oakland was one of a handful of places, just about all of the largest cities/urban areas of the urban northeast, urban midwest, and urban areas of California, which had developed with Panel and #1XB switching from the earliest days of their dial service.
Note that San Francisco/Oakland was using N11 codes in the 1930s rather than the "step-by-step" format of 11X codes. N11 codes in use prior to the 1960s is an indication that the location developed with Panel and/or #1XB rather than SXS switching.
When originating customer DDD became available from Panel/#1XB cities, there was no need for a 1+ to route the call to the CAMA/XBTandem or #4A/4M crossbar toll machine. Instead of the dialpulses needing to be registered at a tandem or toll office, the registers in the local Panel or #1XB office (similar to a #5XB) could do all of the digit storage and analysis/translation up front.
Also, at that time, there were no N0X or N1X central office codes in the 415 area code. This didn't come about until the late 1980s when
415 would begin to have 415-N0X and 415-N1X codes. Thus there was no ambiguity on how many digits to "expect" when the second digit were dialed prior to the late 1980s. If the second digit was a '1' or '0', the local office assumed the call to be a ten-digit call, that the second digit was that of an area code. But if the second digit dialed was a '2' through '9', it was assumeed the call would be a seven-digit call within the 415 area code (whether local or even toll within the same area code). Thus no 1+ was needed. (and 112+ was something common to many SXS offices, both Bell and independent, until they began to standardize on 1+).The use of 211 was just a three-digit code, used to reach the outward "Long Distance" Operator. Many cities prior to the 1960s or so had two separate types of operators, both the local assitance operator (0), and the long distance operator (211 from Panel and #1XB cities; 110 from SXS cities). The smaller towns usually dialed just '0' for both local and toll assistance, which became consolidated for just about all other cities throughout the 1960s and 70s.
Also, you mentioned some NN0 central office codes. These were highly discouraged by AT&T for use until the 1960s/70s time period. But there were uses of NN0 office codes in some places even in the 1930s or
1920s era, even with lettered dialing of Exchange Names. Los Angeles had mixed 2L-4N and 2L-5N numbering and dialing even as far back as the 1920s era, and there was even at least one NN0 format 2L-5N office code back then!And speaking of Los Angeles and Southern California -- remember that they developed with dial independent telephone companies in the early years of the 20th century as well as manual Bell. When these systems began to be consolidated right after the First World War, there were all kinds of unique interconnection arrangements established. Southern California did NOT have Panel (or #1XB) switching, but rather developed everything as SXS when converting manual offices to dial. However, because of the growing complexity of growing Southern California (a major urban area), there were special "kludges" developed such as Pacific Telephone's SAMA and General Telephone's SATT. I'm not exactly sure about General Telephone but I do know that when DDD was first introduced in Bell parts of Southern California, they did NOT require a 1+ for toll from their SXS offices. Instead, customers simply dialed just seven-digits for toll calls to any such toll locations within their home area code (not just 213 but also 714 and 805 are valid area codes in the southern California area), and just ten-digits for toll calls (or local adjacent calls) to other area codes, no 1+ required.
- anthony bellanga
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the way it was in Chicago also in the 1970's at least, and earlier. Just dial 10-D for whatever, or '211' for long distance. One plus only started _absolutely required_ in the early 1980's when prefixes started looking 'funny'. PAT]