cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (08/16/89)
Fred G. Monti writes >Not announced: what will happen to the (relatively few) cases where local >and extended area calls within an NPA are currently dialed with 1 + 10 digits >due to code duplication. They'll probably be reduced to 7 digits. I don't know what this refers to. From Maryland prefixes 621,261,858 you currently dial 1-301-569-xxxx (NOT a toll call) to reach 569 prefix in Severn, because 569-xxxx reaches 569 prefix in Springfield, Va.; that local call to Severn was 1-569-xxxx until the DC area got N0X/N1X prefixes. I guess it'll take a while to reduce that local call to Severn to 7 digits, because you don't want people reaching Severn where Springfield was intended. That's the only DC- area case I know of where more than 7 digits are currently needed on a local call. Your announcement of 1 Oct. 1990 is the first time I have heard a date for that change. I previously asked in this Digest: Does that mean that Md. & Va. suburbs are being removed from area code 202? (I know there are points elsewhere in Md. where local calls to another area are available by dialing 7D only. I am not as familiar with area 703 in this regard.)
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 13-Sep-1989 2059) (09/14/89)
>From: GMONTI "Greg Monti" 12-SEP-1989 17:46:10.61 >Subj: TD Submission: DC Area >*** For Telecom Digest *** >Dt: 12 September 1989 Carl Moore writes: > (Speaking of the >Pentagon: it was written a while back in this Digest that pay phones in it >are in the Arlington, Va. exchange; however, I don't know if they are in the >Rosslyn-area exchanges or in the Crystal City & National Airport area >exchanges.) Private numbers (i.e., not served by the Pentagon PBX, or whatever it is called) are Area 703 numbers served by C&P of Virginia's Columbia Pike Central Office, about 2 miles west of the Pentagon. This includes pay phones in the bus and subway station just outside the Pentagon building line and businesses located in the mini shopping mall inside the Pentagon. I also once saw a modem, fax or private line number (I forget which) for someone inside the Pentagon whose exchange was listed as 202-553. 553 is really in 703 (but temporarily mapped into 202 until Oct 90). The pay phones in the Arlington Cemetery subway station, about a mile north of the Pentagon, are also served out of Columbia Pike. The border to the Rosslyn CO must be just north of there. West of the Cemetery, U.S. Route 50 is the border. The Crystal City/National Airport area is served by three (!) central offices. Most is served out of Columbia Pike but the southern portion is served by the Old Town (Alexandria) office. The border between the two occurs roughly at 23rd Street South and is like "melted cheese" with many overlaps and no fixed border. This can be done because both CO's serve the same Rate Area ("Alexandria/Arlington"). The third CO is a recent addition: Crystal City now has its own. It serves a subset of the area served by Columbia Pike. It was probably opened because of the large number of three and four mile long cables that were being installed from Columbia Pike to the burgeoning number of Crystal City office buildings. New prefixes serving Crystal City/National Airport customers are run out of the new office. Crystal City CO codes are (703) 271, 418 and 769. Columbia Pike is (703) 486, 521, 553, 685, 892, 920, and 979. Old Town is (703) 548, 549, 683, 684, 706, 739, 836 and 838. Within the airport, phones have mixed Columbia Pike, Crystal City and Old Town numbers. Even pay phones right next to each other have alternating CO's attached to them. I imagine this provides a level of backup in case a CO goes down. >By the way, time of day is set up as a local call throughout Maryland. Prior >to these DC-area changes (i.e. now) you dial 844-1212 to get Baltimore time of >day, unless you are in the DC calling area, in which case you dial 844-2525 to >get Washington time of day. Another prefix may also have to be "patched up" to work in more than one Area Code after the change: 202-810. This is used by the Arlington, Virginia, cable TV company (and possibly others) to allow ordering of pay per view movies and events using ANI technology. To order, one makes a 7-digit call to the 810 prefix *from one's home phone*. C&P reports to the cable company the number you called from. The cable company's billing equipment goes to its data base and looks up what customer that phone number belongs to. It bills that account for the movie and also looks up the electronic serial number of the addressable cable box that subscriber possesses. The box is authorized (via a data channel on the TV cable) to descramble the ordered event. If Cable TV Arlington wants to continue giving its subscribers a 7-digit number to dial to order PPV, C&P may have to make 202-810 reachable with only 7 digits from nearby 703. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; workplace +1 202 822-2459
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (09/15/89)
For the purposes of the notes I have been keeping, the Columbia Pike and Crystal City offices you refer to are lumped together (although I do note the newer prefixes coming out of Crystal City), and Columbia Pike/Crystal City is the same as what I called "Crystal City & National Airport". Also, you are apparently saying that Columbia Pike picks up the pay phones in the Pentagon. However, it's interesting to note the "melted cheese" (prefixes which serve the same rate area but, aside from such border situations, different geographic areas). I think I noticed some such "noise" around Broad Street and Vine, on or near the border in Philadelphia between "center city east" and "center city west" groups of prefixes in Phila. zone 1. Back to Va. suburbs in DC area: How close to the boundary between Columbia Pike/Crystal City and Old Town Alexandria is National Airport? (You noted National Airport as having some Old Town Alexandria prefixes among its pay phones.)