On Apr 3, 3:07*am, wrote:
On Apr 2, 8:39*pm, bobharvey wrote:

On Apr 1, 1:08*am, wrote: Did the letters* on British telephone dials always correspond to
those of US dials?

No, see below. *As far as I recall the US, Canada, & the Philippines
were the only ones who used the US system, but ICBW.

I heard some countries may have had the Q and O in different
positions.

we had O & Q on the zero. *Nice photo athttp://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-domestic-phones.htm

Ok, so when cell phones came out widely, did Britain convert to that
scheme? *What about older landline Touch Tone and rotary phones--did
the dial ring have to be converted?

Sorry, I don't understand this; what does the introduction of cell
phones have to do with letters/numbers, and converting other 'phones?


I'm pretty sure Britain used exchange names as the US did. *When did
Britain go to all number calling? *(The last US city 'converted' in
1980, but it took a long time for old habits and signage to die.)
Then, businesses used the letters to give themselves memorable phone
numbers, such as TAXICAB.

Yes, we used to have exchange names in the number. For example, we
had an exchange called Abbey, the first three letters were part of the
number. The London Transport travel information service was 1234 on
this exchange, and would have been written as 'ABBey 1234. Until a
few weeks ago a hairdressers shop which I pass on my way to work still
had a sign which showed their number in this way, despite the fact
that this was phased out some time in the late '60s, I think. The
next version used '01' for London, followed by the old number with the
letters converted to digites. Since the 'A and the 'B' are both in
the 2 hole this number became 01-222 1234. If calling from within
London you did not need to dial the 01, but could if you wanted
to.Something over 20 years ago we started to run out of numbers, so
London was split into inner and outer, with the inner becomming 171
and the outer 081. Since the Abbey exchange was in inner London, the
LT number then became 071-222 1234. A few years later we were running
out of numbers again, so a '1' was added, and the number then became
0171-222 1234. Various other codes also gained a 1; 021 for
Birminghame 0121 and 0865 for Oxford became 01865 for example. The
final change (so far) was when inner and outer London were re-combined
as 020 with the 7 or 8 added previously added before the remaining 7
digits, so the LT number then became 020 8222 1234, and so it remained
until recently, when it went over to one of the new non-geographic
numbers, but the 1234 part still remains the same. Internationally
the number would be shown as +44 (0) 20 8222 1234; the 0 after the 44
would not normally be dialled if calling from overseas. Other digits
are now being used after the 020; our SIP trunks at work are a 020
3xxx xxxx number for example. This caused a problem at work a couple
of weeks ago. A user complained that some of her calls weren't going
through. She was calling a 020 8xxx xxxx number, but missing out the
leading 020. This would normally work, since our ISDN trunks are a
020 8xxx xxxx number, but would fail if the call happened to be routed
over the SIP trunks. I had to tweak the ARS on the telephone system
slightly to add the missing 020 digits back in if the number dialled,
was 98 followed by exactly 7 more digits and the call was routed via
SIP. The '9' above is to obtain an outside line, and is stripped off
before the call is dialled out.

Things like your TAXICAB example were not common here. The letters
letters were not put on later dial plates, or on the rings outside
them, after all-figure numbers were introduced, so many people
wouldn't have known how to dial them. Even in candlestick and
Bakelite days many instruments were fitted with the 'F' versions of
the 10 and 12 dials, which did not have letters on them.
Interestingly, I've got a modern Mitel 5304 IP telephone in front of
me. It has both a 'Z', on the 9 button, and a 'Q' on the 7 button,
whereas the 21L dial which I have at home added the Q to the 0 hole.

Before the 5304 Mitel made a similar IP model without a display, and
SIP only. The model number of this was 5302, which probably means
something to our older American readers; a very different telephone.