Patrick_A_Townson@cup.portal.com (07/30/88)
Dave C. asks, "Is area 809 an area code that Sprint created?'...no indeed. 809 has been around for 20 plus years as part of the North American Numbering Plan. Admittedly, it is an odd one, but there is nothing new about it. Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) started phasing into service in 1955, and was fully implemented by the early sixties with the exception of a few small independent phone companies that were holdouts for one reason or another. A/C 809 was assigned then, but not actually functional until maybe 1968-70, that is, where it could be dialed without operator assistance. 809-555-1212 is serviced by whatever Bell company occupies South Carolina, which is where the cable leaves the mainland and starts into the ocean heading south-southeast. There are 'make believe' area codes however. They are used for billing purposes by AT&T among others. Typically they start with '1' and take the form of '161' or '176', etc, followed by the standard seven digit number. These appear mainly on Miscellaneous Billing/Special Billing Credit Cards issued by AT&T. Their purpose is to provide a standarized number for people without a regular number who want AT&T credit cards. Examples would be persons in the military, students at a university who use payphones to call home, etc. Following divestiture, the job of assigning, maintaining and billing/ collecting for miscellaneous accounts was taken over by Cincinnati Bell. There are also a couple of three digit 'area codes' used for special billing purposes for large corporate customers; a few such three digit codes are used for the federal GSA; a few are used internally by AT&T and local Bell companies for their own long distance calls when away from the office, etc. A couple others are used in the few remaining situations in this country where 'toll stations' still exist. Nevada is full of these. Where the entire state of Nevada is A/C 702, the toll stations are reachable only with the assistance of your local operator calling 702-181 for Reno (NV) Microwave. Toll stations typically are numbered like 'Luning #1' or 'Luning #2'. To satisfy the requirements of the billing computer, the missing digits are usually plugged in as '181-702-0002' or similar, which I admit looks a little odd when you get your phone bill and see a long distance call to such a number. Finally, a few of those three digit combinations are also assigned to Sprint/MCI/other long distance companies to use for inter company billing with AT&T and local telcos, etc. Patrick Townson