# Is (or was) there anything inherently numeric about phone numbers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-or-was-there-anything-inherently-numeric-about-phone-numbers/846905>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 24, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-or-was-there-anything-inherently-numeric-about-phone-numbers/846905 "2020-01-24T17:18:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2020, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-or-was-there-anything-inherently-numeric-about-phone-numbers/846905/61 "2020-02-01T07:52:17Z")

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Okay, I just tried doing some (simulated) pulse dialing.

My phone is a Lucent model 100 (described in the two posts immediately above), and my phone company is AT&T, and my phone account with them is U-Verse which is AT&T’s own private protocol.

This phone line seems to NOT support pulse dialing. When I try it, after each digit I dial I just get a dial tone again. Like it’s ignoring it. But this is U-Verse. It doesn’t even get DSL. Instead it has its own DSL-like service, requiring their own kind of modem/router/hub box, which does Wi-Fi too.

The phone itself does seem to support pulse dialing type-ahead, which I find a bit surprising. I tried as many as three higher digits (7, 8, 9) is rapid order, and it pulsed them in sequence one at a time. Who’da thunk it?

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**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-or-was-there-anything-inherently-numeric-about-phone-numbers/846905/62 "2020-02-03T02:39:42Z")

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> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> And if i remember correctly, there were techniques to dial using the hang-up switch by tapping it.

Yeah, you could tap it the value of digit, with a short pause in between.

Rotating the dial wound up a spring that tapped the hang up switch for you when it unwound.

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**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-or-was-there-anything-inherently-numeric-about-phone-numbers/846905/63 "2020-02-03T04:35:32Z")

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Old Japanese phones didn’t have letters because the Roman / Latin alphabet wasn’t universally known in Japan when phones were introduced.

Here is [an image](https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E6%AE%8A%E7%B0%A1%E6%98%93%E5%85%AC%E8%A1%86%E9%9B%BB%E8%A9%B1#/media/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB%3APink_Public_Telephone.jpg) of an old pay phone, which was used into the 80s. We missionaries had these pay phones in our apartments.

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