Row Dyeland is just small and provincial enough that a significant fraction of people get confused when I give them more than 7 numbers. I’ve made a habit out of saying “area code ### ### ####” when giving my number.
I’ve got a cell phone only, with the same area code for the last 11 years, 4 states, and 7 local area codes. In fact, when I got my freshman year at college, I started off using the area code that matched my parents’ home address, rather than my college’s area code, since I needed a relatively permanent and stable billing address.
Question: When you make a local call on your cell phone, can you get away with dialing only 7 digits, or do you have to include the local area code, too?
My cell phone is different and I find it’s a great spam filter. If I get an unknown caller from this area code, I assume it’s something worth answering as there is little chance that they shouldn’t have my number. But if I get a call from the same area code as my phone (that I haven’t lived in for 8 years) then it’s either someone I know and I have their number or it’s a promotional call or wrong number and I can ignore it.
My landline on the other hand, which I’m thinking about dumping, is almost always sales calls so it goes to the answering machine.
I… don’t really know. For all my adult life, phone numbers have had 10 digits. Even when I was a kid, it was in a big enough city that I’d often need the area code to call people. They even started introducing “overlay codes” around 2000 because the older area codes were running out of numbers.
I just tried. From way back when, my cell phone has my office number stored in it without the area code. When I dialed it, Verizon told me I had to use the area code.
I grew up in MD and I’ve always had to use the area code when dialing any number. Actually, I remember I was in high school when that happened- they added the 443 and 410 to the 301.
I got a cell phone in my name as soon as I was old enough and have never changed that number. I no longer live in MD, but I still have my number. I guess people don’t move as much as I expected. I knew when I was a kid there was no way I would live in my birthplace as an adult, and my observation was that most happy and/or successful people moved away. Yet, everyone I know here has lived here their whole lives and 90% of the people I grew up with still live back there.
I do have a “landline” that has a local number that pre-dates my arrival. It’s actually a wireless home phone that had the number ported. I use that for a lot of things, mostly when I don’t plan or need to answer the phone.
Cell only. I live in Chicago, but have had that number since 1995 when I lived near my parents in the suburbs. I’ve been in the city for 15 years but have an area code 45 miles west. No biggie.
Nope. I never bothered to change my number when I moved to Atlanta from Tucson. Everyone already had this number and we all mostly use our cell phones anyway, so LD doesn’t cost anything.
I don’t have a landline (though my cell reception is so bad in the new place that I’m tentatively considering it. I’ll change providers first though.)
Landline is local but my cell phone is from where we used to live before we moved here three years ago. My kids’ cell phones as well. My husband’s cell phone is from a city we’ve never lived in due to work complications.
I’ve had the same cell phone number for about 12 years. It was a great benefit when I was moving all the time, but now, I really want to get a local number. This town is parochial enough that I know having an out-of-town number is a hindrance socially and especially in employment. People want to know that if they’re going to hire you or make friends with you, that you are rooted here and that you’re going to stay long-term. Plus, the area code I have is from an area we have a great rivalry with. Employers often assume I’m going to try to run back to that area as soon as I can…even though I’ve lived for the last 11 years in this state.
Then again, it will be a huge frustration when I change it, because this number is how everyone knows to get in touch with me.
Well, I answered the poll, but I thought we’d be exchange codes. Ours used to be divided by area, but they aren’t anymore. Only in the smallest towns, where one exchange code is enough. (i.e. they have less than 10,000 people or so.)
I still have mine because I have DSL for Internet. DSL requires a phone line and it’s only another 2 or 3 dollars to keep the voice service with it. Plus so many people know my landline number. Not that I ever answer it. :rolleyes:
Wow. I’m old enough to remember back to before we had to dial the area code, and the whole state was 301. I remember it being a big hassle to have to start using the area code.
When we moved here (26+ years ago), DC was all 202, the MD burbs (and all the way up through Baltimore) were all 301, and Northern Virginia was all 703 - and you didn’t have to dial an area code to call a number in the other jurisdiction (i.e. we could call DC with a 7-digit number). I think they went to 10-digit dialing - when calling the other areas - a few years after that.
All our phones (house and cell) have the “correct” area code, though my daughter has one with the overlay code that was added 10 years or so ago. That was what her cheap prepaid phone came with, and when we gave her a smartphone this year she didn’t want to switch. I kinda wanted her to have the “real” code; she thought that was silly (and really, she’s right).
I was even able to get a Google Voice number with the local area code (and a town just 5 or so miles away), woohoo.
I suppose if we ever do give up the landline, I’ll port the old number to GV just for sentimental purposes :D.
