Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!cs.widener.edu!dsinc!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: lfd@lcuxlq.att.com (Leland F Derbenwick) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 215 Area Code Loses "1" per Newspaper 'Reporter' Message-ID: <15541@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 20 Dec 90 17:58:35 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 36 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 893, Message 6 of 8 Apparently, neither "Puzzled Bill" nor our Moderator has ever lived in an area where an initial "1" meant _any_ toll call. That is, where a "1" would be followed by 10 digits for numbers in another area code, or by 7 digits for toll numbers in your own area code. A straight 7 digit number, with no leading "1", was a local, free call. The advantage of this scheme is that you could never make a call that you thought was free, talk for an hour, and then find out on your bill that you were being charged by the minute. Of course, this has the exact same problem as _never_ having to dial "1": the the first 3 digits after the "1" must distinguish an area code from an exchange, so exchanges must all be of the pattern NNX (in regular expression form, [2-9][2-9][0-9]). So dropping the "1" before 7-digit toll calls allows a "1" to be interpreted as "10-digit number follows", which means that "1" always precedes an area code, and a dialed string without a "1" is always a 7-digit. This allows exchange prefixes to use the NXX pattern, adding all the exchanges with a 0 or 1 in the second digit. Speaking strictly for myself, Lee Derbenwick, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Warren, NJ lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM or !att!cbnewsm!lfd [Moderator's Note: That's right, I have never lived in such a place. Here in Chicago, what is local to me is toll to a person a few miles away but still within the city. There is no longer any local free calling zone which takes in the whole city. We never could have used the '1 means toll charge' arrangement here since who is to say ahead of time which prefixes would have a '1' in front. The difference between a free call and toll call here is entirely dependent on which central office area you live in. PAT]