Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: tell@oscar.cs.unc.edu (Stephen Tell)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Why Were Area Codes Scattered Around in Assignment?
Message-ID: <11920@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 9 Sep 90 05:29:40 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Reply-To: tell@oscar.cs.unc.edu (Stephen Tell)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 34
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 632, Message 5 of 12


In article <11862@accuvax.nwu.edu> cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan)
writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 627, Message 1 of 9

>In article <11535@accuvax.nwu.edu> bellutta@irst.it (Paolo Bellutta)
>writes:
>[asking why North American area codes aren't systematic by region]
 ......
>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.

I had noticed that myself.  Soon, however, half of AT&T-land (northern
New Jersey) gets split off into 908.  908 is now in the "permissive
dialing" phase; the new code works but doesn't become mandatory until
next spring, I think.

Some time ago, someone speculated here that the geography of the
201/908 split was a way for Bellcore making life slightly more
complicated for their former AT&T brethren.


Steve Tell      e-mail: tell@wsmail.cs.unc.edu usmail:  #5L Estes Park apts
CS Grad Student, UNC Chapel Hill.  919 968 1792         Carrboro NC 27510


[Moderator's Note: Although 201 is 'first in numerical order', it
isn't really the fastest, since 0 is actually 10 on the phone dial.
201 = 13 pulls, compared to 212, which is really 'first' with 5 pulls.
And Steve Reed, in the message before this one, correctly notes that
202, although second in numerical order, is actually in the mid-range
of area codes from a pulse-dial perspective, requiring 14 pulls.
Maybe AT&T was saying 'first comes Mother, then Our Nation's Capitol,
then the rest of you turkeys!'  :)   PAT]