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.

Did using those shortcuts result in lower rates since an operator wasn't
needed? Or was it just a matter of convenience/speed?

You may recall that until 1980, northwest Mexico was dialed with 903.
Mexico changed its numbering pattern. That part of Mexico got a "city code"
of 6, so the NANP area code was changed to 706.

I wouldn't recall that since I was only two or three at the time and
probably didn't even know Mexico _existed_, much less how to call it.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

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.

On Apr 6, 1:12*pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:
GTE, Cable & Wireless. A GTE subsidiary offered telephone service
in Dominican Republic in the 1940's, which is why that country is in NANP..

Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?

wrote:
On Apr 6, 1:12 pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:

GTE, Cable & Wireless. A GTE subsidiary offered telephone service
in Dominican Republic in the 1940's, which is why that country is in NANP.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?

I have no clue.

On 4/6/2012 12:10 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
wrote:
On Apr 6, 1:12 pm, "Adam H. wrote:

GTE, Cable& Wireless. A GTE subsidiary offered telephone service
in Dominican Republic in the 1940's, which is why that country is in NANP.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?

I have no clue.

Having lived in GTE territory most of my life, with a couple of years in
Ma Bell territory in between, I'd say that the phones themselves were
equal.

Service was another thing all together. Things got so bad in the late
1970s that the city of Santa Monica considered giving GTE the boot in
favor of Pacific Bell. Admittedly, there was always a dial tone, but
noise on the lines was horrible, and getting any kind of service problem
taken care of was very slow.

They eventually improved, thank Dog, before we started hooking up modems!

It's now Verizon. Service is great. Bureaucracy stinks.

Regards,

-DAve

On Apr 7, 1:17*am, spsffan wrote:
Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?

Having lived in GTE territory most of my life, with a couple of years in
Ma Bell territory in between, I'd say that the phones themselves were
equal.

Service was another thing all together. Things got so bad in the late
1970s that the city of Santa Monica considered giving GTE the boot in
favor of Pacific Bell. Admittedly, there was always a dial tone, but
noise on the lines was horrible, and getting any kind of service problem
taken care of was very slow.

Thanks for your comments.

Returning to rail for a moment, many railroads, streetcar lines, and
other industrial entities have AE built PAX--private automatic
exchange. I think Bell was forbidden to sell such equipment except to
the military as a result of the 1950s consent decree. Anyway, it was
common in railroad offices to see two telephones on a manager's desk--
A Bell set and an AE set (like an AE 40 which has a distinctive
look). Some of those private networks were large with thousands of
stations (eg corner call boxes of a big city police department or
transit carrier).


GTE was the largest of the Independents. In the 1970s many
Independent carriers had service problems like you describe. The
Independents tended to be old step-by-step equipment because that was
most economical for the smaller exchanges of Independent territory and
it was a relatively simple design. But SxS needs extensive
maintainence to work reliably and keep the noise down. As equipment
aged or there was new population growth, many of the Independents did
not have the needed capital to properly upgrade their plant.

Another problem of the Independents was a lack of economies of scale.
Even a large carrier like GTE or United might only have only one
exchange in a region, the neighbors being Bell or a different
Independent. In the 1980s there was an overdue effort to swap
exchanges to build contiguous service areas. Also, building a pole
line or digging a conduit is expensive, and in Bell areas the cost
tended to be spread over many more customers.

Ironically, once ESS came down in price in the later 1980s the
Independents rushed to buy them, and in some cases were more up to
date than small town Bell exchanges. One small town exchange manager
told me that ESS eliminated the need to expand the C.O. building and
was a big saving on maintenance costs. A lot more can be done
remotely with an ESS community dial office than a SxS one, a big
saving since sending a man out to a remote CDO was expensive.

Two things to add:

One phone number in the 1964 PRR timetable as a "YL n-nnnn". The
phone company was experimenting was using two meaningless letters as
way to expand dialable codes; such as in Buffalo. This didn't catch
on, and they went to ANC instead.

Also, railroads and pipelines were two exempted businesses that Bell
would allow to own and maintain Bell telephone equipment due to the
difficulty of maintaining wayside equipment. The PRR owned a separate
long distance network, complete with toll testboards.

Some smaller railroads retained magneto local battery phones into the
1980s. They of course required periodic visits to replace the
batteries (No. 6 dry cells*), but the cells were designed for
intermittent use and lasted a long time (geez, today with alakaline
they could go many years).

*Do they still make No. 6 dry cells?



On Apr 7, 2:12*pm, wrote:
On Apr 7, 1:17*am, spsffan wrote:

Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?
Having lived in GTE territory most of my life, with a couple of years in
Ma Bell territory in between, I'd say that the phones themselves were
equal.

Service was another thing all together. Things got so bad in the late
1970s that the city of Santa Monica considered giving GTE the boot in
favor of Pacific Bell. Admittedly, there was always a dial tone, but
noise on the lines was horrible, and getting any kind of service problem
taken care of was very slow.

Thanks for your comments.

Returning to rail for a moment, many railroads, streetcar lines, and
other industrial entities have AE built PAX--private automatic
exchange. *I think Bell was forbidden to sell such equipment except to
the military as a result of the 1950s consent decree. *Anyway, it was
common in railroad offices to see two telephones on a manager's desk--
A Bell set and an AE set (like an AE 40 which has a distinctive
look). *Some of those private networks were large with thousands of
stations (eg corner call boxes of a big city police department or
transit carrier).

GTE was the largest of the Independents. *In the 1970s many
Independent carriers had service problems like you describe. *The
Independents tended to be old step-by-step equipment because that was
most economical for the smaller exchanges of Independent territory and
it was a relatively simple design. *But SxS needs extensive
maintainence to work reliably and keep the noise down. *As equipment
aged or there was new population growth, many of the Independents did
not have the needed capital to properly upgrade their plant.

Another problem of the Independents was a lack of economies of scale.
Even a large carrier like GTE or United might only have only one
exchange in a region, the neighbors being Bell or a different
Independent. *In the 1980s there was an overdue effort to swap
exchanges to build contiguous service areas. *Also, building a pole
line or digging a conduit is expensive, and in Bell areas the cost
tended to be spread over many more customers.

Ironically, once ESS came down in price in the later 1980s the
Independents rushed to buy them, and in some cases were more up to
date than small town Bell exchanges. *One small town exchange manager
told me that ESS eliminated the need to expand the C.O. building and
was a big saving on maintenance costs. *A lot more can be done
remotely with an ESS community dial office than a SxS one, a big
saving since sending a man out to a remote CDO was expensive.

On Apr 6, 3:10*pm, "Adam H. Kerman" wrote:
Just out of curiosity, do you have any opinion regarding the service
and equipment quality of GTE/Automatic Electric vs. the Bell System/
Western Electric?

I have no clue.

Here is a 1955 booklet describing AE before GTE merger (12 meg).
Notice their focus on the Strowger switch and subtle implication that
it's superior to common control.

http://www.telephonecollectors.info/...10538&Itemid=2


Here is 1952 AE brochure for a PAX (10 meg). Notice they tout that it
is owned, not rented, and that it is separate from outside telephone
service "keeping lines free for important internal calls".

http://www.telephonecollectors.info/... 3680&Itemid=2

I think our postwar city public schools widely used the AE 32A38
system which for supported very low traffic but many lines (up to
100). There was a common talk path. Phones in classrooms had no
dial, and lifting it rang the main office phone. The main office
phone could dial any classroom. I suspect this system was relatively
inexpensive bare bones but highy functional for the job since there
wasn't much intercom usage within the school. (It would've been nice
to have saved a unit whenever the schools dumped them to a more modern
system.)

A P.S. for the SEPTA transit (ex PTC) PAX: The system began to fail
from age in the 1980s. New reduced Centrex pricing allowed SEPTA to
have Bell re-equip its privarte network. Employees who worked in
places like towers and cashier booths liked the upgrade because now
they could receive inward calls from home, not previously possible
with the private system.

The City of Phila once had a big PAX system, such as to support police
street corner call boxes. I suspect they merely abandoned much of it
since Bell phones provided as much or more function, and police radios
made callboxes obsolete. During the 1980s-1990s they also abandoned
the corner fire callboxes due to a very high incidence of false alarms
and that almost everyone had access to a phone.

On Apr 6, 12:15*pm, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

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.
Did using those shortcuts result in lower rates since an operator wasn't
needed? *Or was it just a matter of convenience/speed?

It depends if there were any discounts for directly dialed
international calls at that time. I don't know when such discounts
began, but probably later since it took time to get IDDD capability
installed.

When discounts began for domestic direct dialed calls (circa 1971)
they weren't too much--as time went on the difference became greater.
In the 1970s, if a subscriber didn't have DDD capability or was having
trouble placing the call, they still got the cheaper DDD rate for a
plain station call. Later on they charged dearly for any operator
assistance, even if there was line trouble.

On 06/04/2012 17:15, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 05-Apr-12 18:42, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen 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.

Did using those shortcuts result in lower rates since an operator wasn't
needed? Or was it just a matter of convenience/speed?

You may recall that until 1980, northwest Mexico was dialed with 903.
Mexico changed its numbering pattern. That part of Mexico got a "city code"
of 6, so the NANP area code was changed to 706.


Calling from metropolitan France to any of the country's overseas
departments or territories is only a trunk/long distance call, whilst
all those entities have separate international dialling codes if
dialling from outside of La Republique.

Calls into San Marino from Italy or the Vatican City are also trunk/long
distance. Those wishing to ring San Marino from outside Italy or Vatican
City must dial +378.

The Vatican City has its own international code of +379 reserved, though
that state is integrated into Italy's telephone numbering plan,
specifically into Rome's which has the 06 city code.

(It would not surprise me if some high-ranking Vatican officials did
have phones that used only +379, however.)

+44 is also used not only for the the United Kingdom of Great Britain &
Norther Ireland, but also for the Isle of Man as well as Bailiwicks of
Guernsey and Jersey.

Anything further afield, such as Gibraltar or the Falklands, is an
international call with separate country codes.

Calls from Spain into Gibraltar were also trunk/long-distance until
early 2007, however, according to Wikipedia.