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From: cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Why Were Area Codes Scattered Around in Assignment?
Message-ID: <11862@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 4 Sep 90 17:45:29 GMT
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In article <11535@accuvax.nwu.edu> bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta)
writes:

[asking why North American area codes aren't systematic by region]

The Esteemed Moderator notes that large cities were assigned area
codes involving minimum pulsing on a rotary dial, but says:

>Its just that they do not fall in any set pattern, except as noted
>above.

My understanding is that the codes were >deliberately< assigned to
spread the codes around the country, to minimize confusion.  Here in
212-land, I often call 718 (Brooklyn/Queens/Staten Island) to the east
and 201 (Northern New Jersey) to the west.  If these were 211 and 213
respectively, as a systematic plan would require given that
Manhattan/Bronx is 212, I would be more likely to confuse them.

On the other hand, it's always seemed interesting to me that AT&T
itself is located in 201, the first area code in numerical order.


cowan@marob.masa.com	(aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan)