I saw your question about multiple line hunt phone numbers in the Digest.
As for Europe, (at least in Germany) most of the stepper switches were Siemens/Halske RP-40. It was first manufactured beginning in the mid-1930s, and some was still in operation as late as 1980. I managed the US Army's phone system in Europe 1971-1976 and we still had bunches of RP-40. Siemens stopped making repair parts in about 1972, and from then on our German switch techs pieced together what they could. Rotary hunt was available for the RP-40, but the Army wasn't using it.
We had an Italian gentleman who understood the equipment inside out, but none of the Americans would listen to him. I had been to school with AT&T for a year, and I knew the benefits of rotary hunt. Since I was brought in as the "expert", I didn't have any trouble convincing a couple of generals and a bunch of colonels of the benefits of rotary hunt, so we went on a big campaign to install the little brass clip-things that made it possible. In fact, I used to carry one of them in my pocket to show them just how simple it was to install. Actually, we improved traffic handling on the network tremendously by reducing the number of busy tones and re-dials. Mr. DiBernardo and I made a great team, and many people thought we were "magic". Actually, we were just pretty good engineers.
We did some other neat things as well, such as instituting one-way trunks, with overflow to two-way that increased network traffic capacity by over 50% and didn't cost the Army (American Taxpayer) a single dime for new equipment. The capability was there all along, but nobody wanted to listen to Mr. DiBernardo. We implemented circuit "gooming" before it was a popular concept here,which also resulted dramatic increases in traffic capacity.
Just a historical note, we still had the switch in the I.G. Farben Building in Frankfurt that had been installed in 1937-39. The original switch was 400 lines of RP-40. By the time I was there it had grown to about 3,000 lines -- but still RP-40.
I did write a plan for a completely new digital electronic switching system in 1974, known as the "European Telephone System Plan". It went into the Army budget cycle and was approved in 1975, calling for installation of American made equipment. I wanted it to be portable so when we moved bases and troops around we could take it with us. Then politics entered the game. Mr. Rumsfeld who was the Secretary of Defense at the time (the youngest one ever), received a hand-written note from his counterpart in the German Ministry of Defense that said something like: "Dear Don. I understand that the US Army is considering replacing their telephone system in Germany. I just want to remind you that Siemens is eminently qualified to undertake this work". Soon after that Siemens in Munich was awarded the contract -- even though they had never built a digital switch before. Good old Mr. DiBernardo ("Mr. Di" to his friends) provided months of "free" consulting work to Siemens R&D in Munich guiding them through the design process so they could build something to sell to the Army. Of course, the Army paid his TDY expenses from Heidelberg to Munich. He may have gotten some "free" lunches from Siemens.
As for multiple sequential numbers listed on signage, I think that was/is a psychological thing -- at least in Europe. A company that listed only one number might be considered "small", while a company that listed multiple numbers might be considered "large". Of course, they also listed fax numbers, TELEX, and anything else that might bolster their public image. It happens here, too, but for different reasons. I just randomly looked in our phone directory and the Owl Drug Store in Wagoner, OK lists two numbers -- no way to know if they are in rotary hunt or not. The "Land of Oz" in Tulsa is the same way. I suspect that there are hundreds of them here. In the US, it typically happens because the telephone company sales reps that handle business lines don't have a clue about rotary hunt, and the users don't know enough to ask. So if a company has one number, and decides to add another one (or more) due to business needs, nobody ever thinks about hooking them together in a hunt group, and the directory bunch just punches in another number.
Enough of my rambling for now. I'm sure that this may be "too much information", but once I got started, it just kind of went on.
Regards.
Charles G. Gray Senior Lecturer, Telecommunications Oklahoma State University - Tulsa (918)594-8433