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From: johns@scroff.uk.sun.com (John Slater)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone Service in the UK Two Decades Ago
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Date: 5 Dec 90 14:57:30 GMT
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In article <15108@accuvax.nwu.edu>, BMITCHEL@gtri01.gatech.edu (Barry
Mitchell) writes:

|> When I lived in England in 1970 ... a telephone
|> number (area code, etc) was not the same throughout the country.  From
|> one city, your home number would be something totally different from
|> what it would be in another city.

Not true. The 6D or 7D number is constant. Only the code varied (and
not much - see below).

|> The result being that if you were
|> out of your home town and wanted to call home, you couldn't just dial
|> it from memory ... you had to find a local telephone book with all the
|> right codes.

You exaggerate. The dialling code (STD code) was the same for the
whole country except in the area local to the number (where no
dialling code was required) and immediately adjacent areas (where a
short one or two-digit code was used). These short codes served two
purposes: they saved time and finger-ache when dialling, and they
bypassed the trunk network.

Today most local codes have been abandoned, and STD codes work to
anywhere from anywhere, including within the local dialling area. Much
simpler.

|> I don't know if they have updated the system since then

Of course they have! Do you think we've stood still for twenty years?

|> but it made
|> me appreciate the convenience and value that we receive here in the US
|> and North America.  Where else can you order a pizza from a cellular
|> phone while driving home and have the delivery person be there waiting
|> on you when you arrive home?

I don't know what prompts you to make this insular assumption. Of
course we can do this: we have pizza delivery services, and we have
one of the best and most successful cellular setups in the world.


John Slater      Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office