TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What is Area Code 113?

Re: What is Area Code 113?

Fred Atkinson (fatkinson@mishmash.com)
Sun, 23 Oct 2005 19:27:31 -0400

That was for Southeastern Telephone, too. We had Southeastern while
we lived in Tallahassee, Florida for a year while mother finished her
master's degree at FSU. They used 113 for information and 118 was for
time and temperature as well.

I used to dial some of the other codes. Used to get some Southeastern
people, who got annoyed when kids would dial those other codes. One
of them could be used to make someone else's phone ring without you
being on the line when they answered.

It think 110 was for long distance. Then you had a 'circle digit'
(ours was '1' as I remembered). But I think that if you dialed the
wrong 'circle digit', someone else would be billed for the call. I
never tried it, though.

Fred Atkinson

Justa Lurker <JustaLurker@att.net> had written:

> Fred Atkinson wrote:

>> I seem to remember that years ago, 113 was the number for directory
>> assistance down in Florida. But that doesn't give a clue as to why
>> it showed up on your caller ID.

> Must've been GTE territory (well, back then, it was the General System).

> In Erie PA [GTE before becoming Bell Atlantic and now Verizon of
> course] during the 1960s (possibly earlier than that), information
> was also 113 ... repair was 114 ... the fire department was 1171
> ... and you dialed 112 before the area code and number when placing
> a DDD [direct-distance dialing] long distance call. I want to say
> that the test board was 116 but it's been a long time. Not sure if
> there was a speed-dial code (if you will) for the business office.

In Columbia, Mo., GTE/General territory since the late 1950s, the
codes were:

112 for Long Distance access
113 for directory information
114 for repair service
115 for mobile operator
118 for time and temperature
119 for party-line ringback

112 was replaced with "1" around 1971. However, "0" access
(assisted long distance) was not available until 1986.

118 was replaced with 655 in the mid-1970s. 655 in turn was
replaced by 449-0655 (that's GIbson 9-0655) around 1986.

> For some reason, I think a lot of this went away when the GTD EAX
> replaced the old step-by-step equipment sometime in the late 60s or
> early 70s (?).

Columbia had *both* operating in parallel from 1971 to 1986 (in
different switching offices), when GTE brought in some Nortel switches
(would they have been DMS-100s by then?) and swept the old mess
out. No more progress tone just to call across town!

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