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Re: Written format of phone numbers [telecom]

I checked today's (2/26/08) newspaper and found that even within a single telecommunications company advertisement there was no standardization or consistency. More below.

The old Bell System was very fussy about this sort of thing and liked consistency and standardization. Every user manual for equipment, both residential and commercial, contained a few pages on good telephone manners, and they published many booklets and films solely on telephone manners for individuals as well guides for businesses. In earlier years, using the telephone instead of a personal visit or a written letter was seen as cold and impersonal and the phone company sought to dispel that so as to increase telephone usage; however, they wanted the use of the telephone to be seen as respectable and proper, thus the frequent lessons in good manners. Also, naturally, they wanted to reduce wrong numbers and dialing errors and the use of Information and operator assistance for things the customer could do for themselves.

These days we all know how to use the phone technically (well, I don't have a clue as to how to dial overseas but I have no need to.) But I wish people, particularly in businesses, would be taught better telephone manners, including proper use of the HOLD key and giving progress reports to a caller waiting for someone to answer.

However back in the 1960s it was still trying to educate people about area codes and to use them, both in telling contacts one's home area code and to place calls by area code not by city name, so they really pushed the prominence of the area code. (In the 1950s people often didn't know a person or business's distant phone number, they'd call Long Distance and say "Get me John Smith Co. in Kansas City" and the long distance operator would get local information for the number first.

Verizon Wireless used three formats in the same ad:

1) In large type: "Call 1.800.555.2368"

2) In tiny type--the phone number for each local store or agent in the area: "311-555-2368".

3) In medium type another toll free number: "800-555-2369"

4) In the footnotes yet another toll free number: "1-888-555-2360"

So in one ad we have four different formats, including three different formats for toll free numbers.

(It is also curious that they have three different toll free numbers for their business.)

The Sprint wireless ad was all "311-555-2368" format except the general number "1-800-ABCDEFG" (letters used instead of numbers.)

The AT&T wireless ad only had phone numbers for local stores, no general toll free. Almost all stores were "(311) 555-2368", but a couple of stores were listed as "311-555-2368".

Reply to
hancock4
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On a related topic - the use of words instead of numbers for toll free numbers. I seem to recall that the old "Bell System" strongly resisted subscribers using word based numbers, but not for the reason you might think...

One problem was that not all phones had letters on the dial, and indeed the letter correlation with a specific number had changed over the years and possibly by LEC.

The primary reason was the inefficiency of using words when dialing. People could dial numbers quite fast, but resorted to hunt & peck when dialing a word. That combined with the abbreviations that could be used with the resulting mid-dials made the time a central office register was tied up collecting the digits easily twice or three times as long as dialing by number. Registers were expensive and the number installed in each CO was limited.

The Bell System was engineered for efficiency - hence the assignment of low digits in area codes to the most trafficked cities. One or two pulses were quicker to dial than 8 or 9.

I suspect modern exchanges are not register limited, but to this day I find word based tool free numbers difficult to dial - usually because my cell does not have the letters on the keypad.

Reply to
Rick Blaine

Yes. Years ago in France the letter Oh was on the zero position. I had a dickens of a time in Paris dialling an OPEra number (in those days, exchanges were 3 letters) because it was incomprehensible to me that a number would begin with a zero!

Reply to
Julian Thomas

Another poster said the Bell System 'standardized' on the dial plate with letters. I know TWX dials and keypads were number only. But were some Bell System dial phones number only?

(Lots of non-Bell sets were number only.)

So true. I don't like dialing by name because of the hunt and peck. Indeed, I remember in the old days when I'd dial someone in an unfamiliar exchange it was slow to find even the two letter prefix. If I have to dial a name, I translate it first to numbers. Some companies list their digit equivalences next to their name.

Given the popularity of letters in business phone numbers and PBX alpha directories, I'm surprised your cell phone doesn't have letters. Remember, they added Q and Z to the letter set. Also, texting is a big part of cell phone usage and letters are needed for that.

I have a Bell "Design Line" phone from about 1980. It has letters, but they are very tiny compared to big numerals.

There was no time frame where letters weren't used. Even after 100% ANC was in replace in 1981, plenty of people in some places for years after that continued to use their letter name. At the same time, businesses were using letters.

Reply to
hancock4

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