On Apr 2, 6:11*pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:

The analog cell phones of that era supposedly could be switched beteween
the A and B carrier, though I think in practice very people did so.

Hm? Even though the prefix was used to route the inbound call to the
correct cellular network?


I'm not sure how the A/B switched worked. On my Motorola "flip
phone" (model 550), one had to go into the options mode and select it
out of a menu. I had Bell Atlantic, and I believe the baby Bell was
typically assigned the "B" setting, while the other company got the
"A" setting. I don't know what would've happened if I tried to use
the "A" setting.

When I upgraded phones, my old phone still 'sort of'' worked. If I
tried to make a call on it, I would get a recording asking for a
credit card number to place the call on an a la carte basis. (911
calls were mandated to be free).

As mentioned, I think very few people bothered to switch between A and
B.