I use the term “dial” in quotes because it’s not always really a dial.
What I mean is the world pretty much on the touch tone style of dialing when it comes to landline phones (Obviously this wouldn’t apply to cells). I realize you can still get dial phones but I was wondering about less developed countries where they technology for touch tone, may not be yet needed or be more costly.
Also do other nations put letters on their dials like we do in America
For those who don’t know
2 - A B C
3 - D E F
4 - G H I
5 - J K L
6 - M N O
7 - P R S
8 - T U V
9 - W X Y
(Q and Z were left off but some phones lable 7 as QRST and other varients)
Germany: private phones have been digital, that is touch-tone, for about 10 years or so now. I used to have a phone bought in 1993 that was analog and had to exchange it for VoIP to work.
As to the letters: my new phone does have them, but the older phones didn’t. Until recently, when the phone companies opened up to competion, and the structure of phone numbers was changed, even business didn’t have vanity numbers, and it’s very slowly starting to come into fashion.
Trivia for public phones (which have been dying out since “everybody” has a cell, and the Telekom doesn’t want to pay for vandalism): unlike Italy or France, you don’t need special phone coins. Some phones only take Euro coins, some take only cards, most modern ones take both. Also, they apparently updated the software some time ago to accept again the old 10-Pfennig Groschen (dimes), in addition to the 10 Euro cents and are getting quite a number.
In New Zealand, the old rotary phones were numbered clockwise 0123456789. The 0 was in the same place as other countries but the other numbers were opposite.
The system needed (10 - N) pulses to dial the digit N.
Does anyone know of any other countries like that or were we unique?
Um, what? I’m sorry, I don’t understand your terminology. The techs I talked to only call old telephones Analog and new ones with “beep… beep-beep-beep” etc when dialing 1 3 etc Dialogue (or new phones). My VoIP converter box doesn’t understand old telephones, but for the normal phone line itself, it doesn’t matter. (But VoIP is cheaper than Telekom).
In North America, analogue telephones had push-button dialing using dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signalling (“Touch-Tone” signalling) starting in the mid-1960s. Before that, they used pulse signalling from rotary diallers. It toook time for DTMF signalling to spread, so for a long time you could get phones that were push-button, but could give either pulses (for old telephone switches), or tones (for newer ones).
Even with Youch-Tone dialing, the phone system was still analogue. It was digitized between switching centres in the 1980s, and only recently did digital phone service reached the home, usually on the back of high-speed internet services. ISDN was kind of a non-starter here.
You are confusing things. Touch-tone has nothing to do with “digital”. And I assure you that DTMF was introduced in Germany, like elsewhere in Europe, quite a bit earlier than ten years ago. DTMF started being introduced in Europe roughly in the 1970s and progressed gradually as switching equipment was replaced but I am quite sure it was widespread already in the 1980s. I have difficulty believing Germany was behind.
I have tried searching without luck for historical data regarding the introduction and replacement of switching equipment in Europe (rotary central office switching, crossbar, pentaconta, etc.). I’d welcome such information since I have worked in this field.
Anecdote: About ten years ago, in my house in Washington DC, I had an old rotary dial phone in the living room because I never dialed from there but just had it in case a call came in.
The neighbor’s kid, maybe 12 years old, knocked on the door and told me nobody was home and he could not get in and asked me if he could use my phone to call his parents. I said sure, and motioned him towards the phone. I told him I’d be in the kitchen making some coffee.
After a while I come out, with my coffee and I see him standing by the phone. I ask him if he has made his call and he shyly told me he did not know how to dial. He had never seen a rotary dial phone before and he was amazed when I showed him.
Quite possible, since I’m not in any way a tech, just a normal user. All I know is that a phone I bought in a normal store (Telekom) in 1993 (modern then) didn’t have the modern touch-tone that was later required. Sometime in the late 90s they converted the public telephones to touch-tone (you activated it with a special button), when computer voice menus were introduced in many service centers (press 1 to go to), and many older phones at home couldn’t handle this.
As for rotary dials: it has been a long time since I’ve seen one, too. Button phones are easier on the fingers and work quicker.
We have two rotary phones in our house. One is an old reconditioned pay phone in the basement (though it doesn’t require cash). The other is an older phone from the 40’s I think. It’s mounted on the wall and receiver lays on top of it rather than hanging from a hook.
This sounds like Germany was way behind the times and I do remember hearing stories that Deutsche Bundespost, being owned and run by the government, was very inefficient and outdated. With the incorporation and privatization of Deutsche Telekom I wonder if things have improved.
I haven’t seen any letters on land-line telephones here in Korea; however, there are a few different letter/number matching schemes for cell phones. The scheme depends on the manufacturer of the cell phone.
I’ve never seen Thai letters on phones here. Since there are 44 consonants and 48 vowel and diphthong possibilities in the Thai alphabet, that would be troublesome. It’s always the Roman alphabet and in the same manner as shown above. Except I’m looking at my land-line phone now, and 7 is PQRS and 9 is WXYZ.
In the UK, I don’t remember there being letters on rotary dial phones, at least not until things were liberalised and you could buy your own phones (in the old days, you rented them from the state telecom company).
And the letters-for-numbers thing never caught on. We never had those commercials where they say things like “call 1-800-BRAKES” or however they work. Over here, they just give the phone number.
There were letters on British phones until the early 70s; they were used for the old style of dialling code which was based on abbreviations of the town’s name. Many current codes are still based on these, if you take out the preceding 0 and 1. For example the codes for ABerdeen, CAmbridge and BAth begin with 22.
They were also used for the various London telephone exchanges. The most famous one being WHItehall 1212, the number for Scotland Yard. A full list can be found here:-
Other London police stations had XYZ 1212 formats, too, many of which are still in use with the modern prefixes, and it’s also there in the newer general contact number for the Met - 0300 123 1212.
Telephone dials and keypads in Norway did not have any numbers associated with them until cell phone texting came along. Some really old phone numbers consisted of a word followed by numbers, but those had to be reached through an operator, who would manually connect you to the exchange represented by the word.
I have seen a few telephone numbers in ads lately that spell out a word, on the assumption that you’ll call it on your cell phone I suppose.