Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!ames!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 13-Sep-1989 2059) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: DC Area Message-ID: Date: 14 Sep 89 00:59:33 GMT Lines: 75 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us >From: GMONTI "Greg Monti" 12-SEP-1989 17:46:10.61 >Subj: TD Submission: DC Area >*** For Telecom Digest *** >Dt: 12 September 1989 Carl Moore writes: > (Speaking of the >Pentagon: it was written a while back in this Digest that pay phones in it >are in the Arlington, Va. exchange; however, I don't know if they are in the >Rosslyn-area exchanges or in the Crystal City & National Airport area >exchanges.) Private numbers (i.e., not served by the Pentagon PBX, or whatever it is called) are Area 703 numbers served by C&P of Virginia's Columbia Pike Central Office, about 2 miles west of the Pentagon. This includes pay phones in the bus and subway station just outside the Pentagon building line and businesses located in the mini shopping mall inside the Pentagon. I also once saw a modem, fax or private line number (I forget which) for someone inside the Pentagon whose exchange was listed as 202-553. 553 is really in 703 (but temporarily mapped into 202 until Oct 90). The pay phones in the Arlington Cemetery subway station, about a mile north of the Pentagon, are also served out of Columbia Pike. The border to the Rosslyn CO must be just north of there. West of the Cemetery, U.S. Route 50 is the border. The Crystal City/National Airport area is served by three (!) central offices. Most is served out of Columbia Pike but the southern portion is served by the Old Town (Alexandria) office. The border between the two occurs roughly at 23rd Street South and is like "melted cheese" with many overlaps and no fixed border. This can be done because both CO's serve the same Rate Area ("Alexandria/Arlington"). The third CO is a recent addition: Crystal City now has its own. It serves a subset of the area served by Columbia Pike. It was probably opened because of the large number of three and four mile long cables that were being installed from Columbia Pike to the burgeoning number of Crystal City office buildings. New prefixes serving Crystal City/National Airport customers are run out of the new office. Crystal City CO codes are (703) 271, 418 and 769. Columbia Pike is (703) 486, 521, 553, 685, 892, 920, and 979. Old Town is (703) 548, 549, 683, 684, 706, 739, 836 and 838. Within the airport, phones have mixed Columbia Pike, Crystal City and Old Town numbers. Even pay phones right next to each other have alternating CO's attached to them. I imagine this provides a level of backup in case a CO goes down. >By the way, time of day is set up as a local call throughout Maryland. Prior >to these DC-area changes (i.e. now) you dial 844-1212 to get Baltimore time of >day, unless you are in the DC calling area, in which case you dial 844-2525 to >get Washington time of day. Another prefix may also have to be "patched up" to work in more than one Area Code after the change: 202-810. This is used by the Arlington, Virginia, cable TV company (and possibly others) to allow ordering of pay per view movies and events using ANI technology. To order, one makes a 7-digit call to the 810 prefix *from one's home phone*. C&P reports to the cable company the number you called from. The cable company's billing equipment goes to its data base and looks up what customer that phone number belongs to. It bills that account for the movie and also looks up the electronic serial number of the addressable cable box that subscriber possesses. The box is authorized (via a data channel on the TV cable) to descramble the ordered event. If Cable TV Arlington wants to continue giving its subscribers a 7-digit number to dial to order PPV, C&P may have to make 202-810 reachable with only 7 digits from nearby 703. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; workplace +1 202 822-2459