Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 05-Apr-12 18:42, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 01-Apr-12 12:19, wrote:
Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code.
Two area codes: 905 for Mexico City and 706 for northwest Mexico.
That ended in 1991.
They were reserved area code-like dialing patterns within the NANP to
reach parts of Mexico; outside the NANP, the country code 52 had to be
used. Prior to international direct distance dialing, it meant that the
caller could dial the number himself without an intercept operator. After
IDDD, the country code or area code was permissive.
Ah, so they weren't really area codes per se. Mexico never intended to
be part of the NANP; we just had dialing shortcuts for commonly-called
areas within Mexico.
Northwest Mexico was originally wired due to American investment. The rest
of Mexicon, not that I had heard of. NANP was in large part about telephone
industry associations. Bermuda and the parts of the Caribbean in NANP,
until recently, were locations originally wired by companies with American
and British investment: ITT (a company no longer in the telephony business
at all), GTE, Cable & Wireless. A GTE subsidiary offered telephone service
in Dominican Republic in the 1940's, which is why that country is in NANP.
Did using those shortcuts result in lower rates since an operator wasn't
needed? Or was it just a matter of convenience/speed?
In days in which there was a severe shortage of trunks, sometimes appointments
were made to set up these international calls, but that may not have been
the case with Mexico in the 1950's. I hope AT&T passed on significantly
lower call set-up expenses to subscribers, but I don't really know.
Assuming the caller dialed his own call after IDDD was possible, the rates
were the same whether one called the number as if it were in NANP or
using 52+. AT&T claimed that by the late '80's, more people were dialing
these areas using the country code in lieu of the "area code" and therefore
the two "area codes" could be reclaimed, but given the desperate shortage
of area codes, they would have said anything.