telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (07/30/89)
The discussion recently in the Digest regarding 'standardized' seven digit dialing has been accompanied by users telling of experiences in the past when they found non-standard systems. From the time area codes were introduced in the late fifties until just a few years ago, non-standard numbering systems were around. Actually, until about 1965 or so, the majority of the United States, although perhaps using seven digit numbers was still disconnected from DDD, or direct-distance- dialing for one reason or another. Gradually each telco made the necessary changes to enable them to be part of the direct dial network. Officially, exchanges were NOT considered part of the area code in which they were geographically situated until such time as they were direct dialable. One correspondent discussed the summer camp served by the Eagle Bay exchange, and the confusion resulting when he attempted to place a call through the operator. Part of the confusion resulted from telling the operator that the place was in 'area 315'...when in fact it was not part of that area, but merely surrounded by it! The way to pass a call to the operator under those circumstances would have been to dial the operator and simply ask for 'Eagle Bay, New York, 3815'. Let the operator look up the routing. When he said it was in area 315, then she immediatly assumed he could dial it. When the operator called Rate and Route, in Morris, IL (815 + 131 if you are interested), she would be told the route to Eagle Bay was 315 plus 068 plus 121 or similar. On dialing that code, she would be answered by the operator in Eagle Bay, and she would simply pass 'three eight one five' verbally to that person. The old time operators who were around before and after the DDD conversion got underway would have known this; but newer operators who had no experience with the old system would quite obviously be confused at first. There were also systems where your operator could dial into them, although you could not. One place in Minnesota which comes to mind had four digit dialing. A call to Rate and Route by your operator would produce a reply, 'mark ticket 218-447, dial 218 plus 054 plus 447 plus'. This told the operator to dial the four digits you passed verbally to her after dialing the 'pseudo' (in this case) area code, and the prefix that would eventually be assigned. Lafayette, Indiana and lots of other GTE places were peculiar in their resistance to standardized numbering. In the case of Lafayette, which sits in area 317, they went undialable by the masses for many years because they would not force Purdue University to come into compliance with a seven digit number. Everyone in Lafayette had a seven digit number except Purdue University, which was 'conveniently dialable' from all over Lafayette with just two digits: 90. You had your choice, actually. Nine-Oh would fetch the Purdue operator, while nine-two, followed by five digits would directly ring the desired extension on campus. If you wanted to call Lafayette anything from Chicago -- although you could call nearby towns with 317-xxx-yyyy -- you dialed 211, which was our old code for the long distance operator, and asked for Lafayette and the desired *seven digit* number (everyone else in town was 7D), or you asked for 90 (or just 'Purdue') if that was who you were calling. The operator went on a ring down line, jerked her ringing key a couple times and waited till whenever the Lafayette operator came on, anywhere from three seconds to three minutes later, then verbally passed the number. The military bases were another strange setup. All large military posts had their own phone system, replete with three or four digit extension numbers, no actual assigned phone number in the town where they were located, and a bunch of ring down lines on the board going to half a dozen or so major cities. Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana was one such example. The Great Lakes, Illinois Naval Training Center was another. None of those people would budge an inch to bring themselves into compliance with the mandates of DDD, and for years, AT&T and the local telcos kept accomodating them anyway. Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii were two others that were not actually part of area 808 until a few years ago for this reason. Schofield had ring downs to Honolulu and to San Fransisco. From anywhere on the Islands, your operator called Honolulu and they in turn passed you to Schofield. From the mainland, a call to Rate and Route asking for Schofield Barracks produced the response, 'mark ticket 808-054, dial 415 plus 054 plus 181' and sure enough, a San Fransisco operator would answer, connect to the cable and wait for Schofield or Pearl Harbor to answer, eventually, so your operator could verbally pass the desired number. The real holdouts were the ones -- that sometimes still to this day -- would not share their directory listings with 555-1212. Even in the era when the standardization was far from complete, you could usually get information even from the communities still on manual service from the appropriate 555-1212. But sometimes the operator would say -- and still says -- "I'll have to connect you there," and they would ring that exchange, always with an admonition to the other end, "Operator! Information only for this party please! Do not connect him to anything!!". This was necessary since phone phreaks in the 1950's and 1960's knew they could call the appropriate 555-1212, get passed to an independent telco allegedly for information and sweet-talk the little old lady on the other end into putting the call right on through. Some telcos still don't share their directory with the folks who run 555-1212 in their state, which is why you'll occassionally get passed along to someone else when you call asking for a number. Ah yes, then there was, and still is to some extent, northern Quebec. Radio links from a little town called Val-d'Or, Quebec on VHF frequencies. We used to blow the local operator's mind by calling for someone in Ivujivik, Quebec. Local operator would go to R&R for counsel, and get told, 'mark ticket Other Place, dial 809 plus 181. That produced an operator in Montreal who in turn connected us to Val-d'Or, who in turn answered in French to begin with, always prompting the local operator to say, "Speak English!" and after a certain amount of confusion, Val-d'Or would tell us just a minute while she tried to raise Ivujivik on the radio, but she highly doubted they would answer because it was 2:00 AM and they only listen in the evenings between around 9 and midnight. But she would go on the air, leaving the key open on our end while she was calling, (in French, sorry I cannot quote it exactly), "Hello Ivujivik, hello! Val-d'Or calling on channel two! Val-d-'Or here! Come on, are you there? Val-d'Or has a call for you on channel two." And she would repeat herself several times before finally saying to us, "Oh, I am *so* sorry, Chicago! The operator is asleep now and has the radio off. Why don't you try in a few hours, maybe about 8 AM, eh? He listens for us starting at 8 AM until about 10 AM. And Sudberry, Ontario had an *actual wire* running to Moosonee, a few hundred miles to the north, again a ring down point, but if you called in the middle of the night, the operator in Sudberry would always tell you, "If it is not an emergency, she will get mad at us for calling at this time of night. We are not supposed to call until **we give her a wake up call at 7 AM**. Anytime after that until midnight is okay. Of course, *we* knew ahead of time the responses we'd get from both Val-d'Or and Sudberry. The local operators in Chicago were rather blown away by the whole thing, to say the least. By sometime in the early seventies, I suppose, all that stuff was gone. Talk to a very old, retired circa 1950's phone operator sometime if you want to hear some amazing bits of phone history. Patrick Townson