Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Why Were Area Codes Scattered Around in Assignment? Message-ID: <11535@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 31 Aug 90 06:29:36 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 33 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 609, Message 7 of 11 In Italy the area codes (called prefix) is related to the place (more or less like the prefix in the US). 01xx is north west, 02 is Milan, 03xx is Lombardia, 04xx is north east, 05xx is central, 06 is Rome, 07xx is south west, 08xx is south east, 09xx are the isles. The same occours with the ZIP codes. The prefix can have two digits (Rome and Milan only) three digits (main cities) [example 045 is Verona] four digits (the smaller areas) [0461 is Trento]. Phone numbers usually have from four to eight digits. I noticed that in the US while prefixes are related to the place, area code are not (212 is Manhattan NYC, 213 is L.A.!!!). Is there a reason? Moreover, are there other countries that use prefix-place correlation like in Italy? Paolo Bellutta I.R.S.T. vox: +39 461 814417 loc. Pante' di Povo fax: +39 461 810851 38050 POVO (TN) e-mail: bellutta@irst.uucp ITALY bellutta%irst@uunet.uu.net [Moderator's Note: Ecept perhaps by coincidence, area codes in the United States do not follow in a path one after another. When area codes were originally laid out, we were using mostly rotary dail phones. It takes longer to dial nines and zeros than ones and twos. So the big cities were all given low area code numbers, on the assumption more people would be calling those places and the dialing would be more convenient with 'short pull' digits. That is why NYC has 212 (quickest, easiest code for rotary dialers); Chicago has 312; Los Angeles has 213; Detroit has 313, etc. Now of course with tone dialing it really doesn't matter. But the area codes do relate to a specific part of the United States or Canada. Its just that they do not fall in any set pattern, except as noted above. PAT]