I am getting way frustrated lately with simply trying to dial a phone number.
On my Landline:
SOMETIMES, if I dial a local number (same area code), I can dial just 7 digits.
SOMETIMES, if I dial a local number (same area code) with just 7 digits, I get the message “You must dial the area code first”
SOMETIMES, if I dial a local number (same area code) with 10 digits, I get the message “You must dial a 1 first”.
I cannot dial an 800 number, without dialing a 1.
I just called my father in law in another state yesterday, using the same speed dial I have always had, 1-xxx-yyy-zzzz, and was told that I did not need to dial a 1.
On my cell phone:
I can just use 1 +xxx+yyy+zzzz for everything and it generally works.
It’s a result of having 50 separate state utility commissions plus the FCC regulating the phone industry. Some utility commissions were obsessed about warning people if they were about to make a toll call, others were more laid back about it. The ones who were obsessed wrote detailed rules stating that you must require a “1” in front of any possible toll call. In some states when phone companies started charging for directory assistance, they even required a “1” in front of “411.” And they also wrote ridiculous regulations about forbidding a “1” in front of non-toll calls.
Historically, going back to the days of electro-mechanical step-by-step switches, the leading “1” could be used to signal the switch to grab a toll trunk and let the rest of the digits be interpreted by a switch at the other end of the toll trunk. Many phone companies consequently did not have the local switches set up to do message accounting. In that case, you had to not dial the “1” so that the call wouldn’t get handed off to a toll switch. But even when more advanced equipment was installed, the utility commissions would force the phone companies to use the old “1” means toll.
And for many years, the second digit of an area code had to be 0 or 1 and the second digit of a local phone number could not be 0 or 1. So the switch would check the second digit you were dialing to see whether you were dialing a 7 or 10 digit number. But when this restriction was lifted, they needed the leading 1 to resolve ambiguities. Unlike a cell phone, a landline phone does not have a “send” or “call” key to tell the switch when you are done dialing and the Bell System did not want to implement a “timeout” system, so you had to get clues from the phone number itself as to when the caller had finished dialing all the digits. Although not all of these were necessary for cellular phone systems, they copied many of the landline standards.
And later they allowed competitive phone companies into the market and allowed multiple area codes for a single geographical area. The incumbent phone companies would have most of the phone numbers in the legacy area codes locked up and the new competitors would mostly get phone numbers in the new overlay area codes. Regulators felt that presented the newcomers with a competitive disadvantage if most people had to dial 10 digits to reach a customer of the new phone company but dial only 7 digits to reach a customer of the incumbent phone company. So they decreed that everyone must dial an area code, whether it was the same or different. And other regulators still kept in place the old “1 means toll” rules.
So you’ve got a hodge-podge of dialing rules depending on the priorities of state requlators, historical switching equipment set ups, and the growth of demand for phone numbers in a given area.
I just wish we could go to something consistent. I’d be happy just to always dial 10 (or 11), but trying the same number 3 times just makes me want to hurt someone.
Just move to New York City or another major city. We have mandatory 10 digit dialing (actually “1”+10 digit) because we have multiple area code that are overlaid for the same area. For instance, a Manhattan number can have either the 212, 646 or 917 area code.
The original area code for New York City was 212, which was later geographically split, with 212 remaining for Manhattan and 718 becoming the code for the other boroughs of the City. Later, when cell phones were becoming popular and there were not enough 212 numbers available, they brought in the 917 area code which covered the same geographic area, but was available for cell phone use. More recently, when there were insufficient land line numbers available, they added the 646 area code for land use. Now, of course, with number portability and a relaxation of the restrictions, any of the area codes can be for a land line or a cell phone.
I’ve actually had this happen to me:
Dial XXX-YYYY
Message: “You must first dial the area code when calling this number”
Dial (AAA) XXX-YYYY
Message: “It is not necessary to dial the area code when calling this number.”
Nope. If I always dial the 10, or the 1+10, I get the message “It is not necessary to dial the area code when calling this number”, or “It is not necessary to dial a 1 when calling this number”
Just move to New York City or another major city. We have mandatory 10 digit dialing (actually “1”+10 digit) because we have multiple area code that are overlaid for the same area. For instance, a Manhattan number can have either the 212, 646 or 917 area code.
QUOTE]
Hmmm…here is the metro-Boston area, when the population and businesses grew beyond the size that could be fit under the single area code, they actually re-drew the map and one big 617 area code was divided geographically into 3 or 4 area codes. Communities on the edge of the new/smaller 617 fought to be kept in it - some succeeded (my town did ) and others didn’t.
There’s not much to add to Alley Dweller’s fine post about growth and change vs. regulators’ & Telcos’ responses.
Your location says “Nowhere, South Carolina.” Which pretty well guarantees *your *regulators where mostly interested in keeping things constant for old people on the farm who only ever call folks within 20 miles of themselves, regardless of how crazy that made the system for everybody else in the state who calls farther afield.
I live in Montreal, but have a US based cell phone. When I use it in Montreal, it uses the local Bell Canada cells. If I call outside the local area, they will not put it through unless you add the 1. If you dial inside the local area, they will not put it through if you add the 1. Clearly, they could put all these calls through, but have chosen not to. From anywhere in the US, the ten digits suffice.
I told them that this would happen if they split up the Bell System.
Though we’d get overlays anyhow, since today there is one number per person rather than one per household.
In the meantime, elsewhere in the world we just dial + [country] [area] [number] on our cell phones. On a landline, dial either just the number or the area code and the number, the phone company won’t complain either way. (But they will charge you by the minute for ALL calls.)
