Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sat, 25 May 91 00:23:00 GMT From: Joseph Stein Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 800-800 Prefix Message-ID: Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 395, Message 9 of 14 Lines: 38 I was under the impression that one couldn't have a prefix be the same as an AC. Isn't there some "fluke" in telco equipment that prevents having a 0 or 1 as the second digit of the prefix? techbook.com | TECHbooks Employee; I work for | Joe Stein | TECHbooks, but, the views and | | opinions are my own. [Moderator's Note: There is no 'fluke' that it cannot be done. For many years -- like more than a half-century? -- it *wasn't* done, mostly as a way to avoid confusion for callers and telco operators alike. Of course, 'way back when', they did not assign the same prefix code in adjacent area codes either. There were so many four-digit and seven-digit convenience-for-the-community dialing arrangements which extended across state lines and area code boundaries it became impossible to keep up with. And with the growing shortage of workable codes, those special dialing arrangements became an extravagance the network could no longer support. Until around 1970, northwestern Indiana in the 219 area served by Illinois Bell dialed anywhere in 312 with just seven digits and vice versa. And on the southern edge of Chicago -- on the Indiana side -- sat little Whiting, population 8000, and a manual phone exchange until the middle 1960's. From Chicago, we dialed '911' and waited ... after five seconds or five minutes the operator would come on the line and respond by screaming "Whiting!!" in your ear ... and you'd ask for six-oh-nine if you wanted the Walgreen Drug Store, or one-two-three-four if you wanted the recorded announcment giving the movie schedule at the Hoosier Theatre. For Standard Oil you could ask for two-one-one-one but saying 'Whiting Refinery' worked also,; they'd plug you into the refinery operator either way. I made the last manual call in Whiting the night of the cut, and the first automated call a few seconds later, at 2:00 AM that morning. Until the Hoosier Theatre closed a couple years ago their number remained 219-659-1234. PAT]