In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

"Stephen Osborn" wrote in message
...

Your 'phone line will physically be connected to a some
sort of device locally. However this could be a consolidation
device that takes all of those lines on to a neighbouring
exchange building. Alternatively it could just take *some*
of those lines to a neighbouring exchange building if there
are logistcal reasons. For example the one room in the
building still being used for exchanges only has room for
three and a half sets of lines - don't forget that at some
stage 9,999 lines have to be connected up to each local
exchange.

What might the rest of the exchange be used for? I know that part of the
WIllesden exchange in Harlesden Road is being / has been converted to
flats, but what about others?

Developers in partnership with Cambridge City Council are paying a small
fortune right now to demolish part of the Cambridge central exchange (at
the back of the main post office) and re-route its cables. It serves a lot
more than 9,999 lines.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Martin Underwood) wrote:

"Richard J." wrote in message
. ..
Martin Underwood wrote:
"Jack Taylor" wrote in message
...

"Clive Page" wrote in message
...

I've seen quite a few vehicles which even to this day bear phone
numbers such as 01532 xxxxxx or 01734 xxxxxx, having blindly
applied the "insert a 1" rule to codes that changed completely - eg
to 0113 or 0118.

I don't know about Leeds, but Reading changed to 01734 in 1995
(phONEday). The new code of 0118 was introduced in 1996, in parallel
with 01734 which was withdrawn in 1998.

My memory must be playing tricks with me (nothing new there!) - I could
have sworn that Leeds changed to 0113 2 at the same time as most other
exchanges had a 1 inserted in their code. I used to phone my grandpa in
Leeds every so often and I'm sure I had to change from 0532 671xxx to
0113 2671xxx without an intervening 01532 671xxx. Now I think about it
more, I believe that Reading did change from 0(1)734 to 0118 later than
phONEday, so maybe 01734 was valid for a while.

Your memory is not playing tricks. 01532 was never a valid area code, nor
were 01742 (actually 0114 Sheffield), 01602 (0115 Nottingham), 01533 (0116
Leicester) or 01272 (0117 Bristol).

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Clive Coleman) wrote:

In message , Richard J.
writes
number, i.e. 020.
All very interesting, but just goes to show the snobbery of the
people who try to point out their [= they're] living in the London
area, as I've never read anything authoritative on telephone number
groupings.

How on earth can you deduce any snobbery from that eminently practical
suggestion? In fact the snobbery lies with people who have to
emphasise that they live in the "0207" part of London.

I'm coming to the conclusion that "just goes to show" often means
"matches my prejudices".
To be honest, I was just thinking of the old "Beattie" ad, where when
the numbers were first introduced, a friend rings Beattie on her "our
of town number" so she rings back to make sure her friends inner-city
number is working.

These people seem not to realise that 020 7xxx and 020 8xxx numbers ceased
to be confined to inner and outer London respectively some years ago.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Martin Underwood) wrote:

Going off at a tangent, slightly, how are 07xxx mobile phone codes
allocated: did different networks (Vodafone, one2one etc) buy blocks of
codes and allocate from them, or are the numbers allocated completely
at random? In other words, for a given code (eg 07748) are all numbers
with that code connected via the same provider?

There was a translation table from the previous allocations which, being
picked from unused STD allocations, were all over the place. E.g. my O2
(then Cellnet) number was 0410 which became 07710.

In general O2 and Vodafone are in both 077 and 078 and T-Mobile and Orange
are 079 though.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

http://www.davros.org/phones/btnetwork.thml explains this in more
detail.

or would if you'd not misspelled it! Try
http://www.davros.org/phones/btnetwork.html.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Martin Rich) wrote:

As I understand it, the idea is to use the format XXX 01 PP from March
2051, and XXX 51 PP from September 2051 where XXX are random letters
and PP is a place designator, so the present system could actually
last until 2100

or 28th February 2101, to be precise. See you there!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

If so, did it start at the same time as in Great Britain - ie A=1963,
B=1964 etc?

Except only London used A.

Not exactly. IIRC Only Middlesex (this was before the GLC remember) and
Staffordshire used "A". London (as in the LCC) didn't use "A" in 1963.

A number of offices have used "A" since for re-registrations of vehicles
going back to 1957, again IIRC. There are some obvious examples in
re-registered early Routemasters (to bring this back onto topic for this
group).

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , Clive Page
writes
Well we are getting in to questions of semantic, I fear, as to the
meaning of "dialling code". I still think that during the transition
period, when the local numbers were 7 digits long, and one could call
them by starting dialling 020... that, following the rules of the ITU
E.123, the space in the number should have preceded the local part of
the number, i.e. before the last seven digits. So that the number
could have been given either as 0171 xxx yyyy or with equal validity
0207 xxx yyyy.

No.

At that point the number was (0171) xxx yyyy.

It so happened that you could dial it as 020 7xxx yyyy, but that didn't
make the code 0207. It was just another way to dial it.

Many years ago, the code for Hockley[*] was 03704. A lack of blocking
in the switches meant that you could also dial Hockley numbers as
070224. That didn't make the code for Hockley be 070224; it was simply
another way of dialling it.
[*] This applied to all the Southend-on-Sea ring exchanges: Canewdon,
Hockley, and Shoeburyness. I *think* the last digit was 6, 4, and 2
respectively, but I may have them mixed up. Nevertheless the point
remains valid.

but it seems undeniable, if you read E.123 carefully.

Done. It remains deniable.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

In article ,
Colin Rosenstiel writes
Developers in partnership with Cambridge City Council are paying a small
fortune right now to demolish part of the Cambridge central exchange (at
the back of the main post office) and re-route its cables. It serves a lot
more than 9,999 lines.

46,900 numbers, according to my records. Of course, a phone number might
have more than one line allocated to it, or vice versa.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

If so, did it start at the same time as in Great Britain - ie A=1963,
B=1964 etc?

Except only London used A.

Not exactly. IIRC Only Middlesex (this was before the GLC remember) and
Staffordshire used "A". London (as in the LCC) didn't use "A" in 1963.

Lancashire also issued A-suffix numbers in 1963. It was a toss-up whether my
car was registered as ATExxxA or 6189DK, ending up as the latter.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
Web Site: http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/