In many places in the U.S. the demand for telephone exchanges is very
> high for a variety reasons. This has result in area code splits and
> overlays. NJ started off with one area code and now has nine.
> But some states still only have one area code. I understand some
> states are not growing very fast in population, indeed, some rural
> towns are losing population. This includes: Alaska, Idaho, Montanna,
> North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. (Not counting some other
> single-code states).
> Given the rural/low growth aspect of places in some of these states, I
> was wondering if telephone service may still have some old fashioned
> features to it. For example, would such areas have:
> 1) Traditional party line service, since it's not worth the cost to
> upgrade lines out to people's farms?
Yes.
2) Five digit dialing in some areas not well populated or served by
> community dial offices?
*VERY* rare. Gotta have full numbers, to handle direct-dial inbound calls from outside that exchange. Recognizing 'short cut' dialing within the exchange raises all sorts of complexities, having to do with 'variable length' numbers, and detecting 'end of dialing'.