Here is another piece, this one on 'recommended' exchange names.
From: elgart@netdepot.com (Ken Elgart)
Subject: Re: Recommended "EXchange" Names
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 09:23:31 -0400
In the Telecom Archives file 'exchange.names.recommended' Mark
J. Cuccia <mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu> wrote:
> The following is a list of *recommended* names for dialable/quotable
> telephone EXchange names...
As a follow-up to your post of the list of recommended exchange names
(which I tried in vain to track down while I was employed at Western
Electric) I thought I'd add some observations from that job and from my
student days at the University of Buffalo. When I lived in Buffalo the area
had 2L-4N dialing and my phone number (PArkside 6755) was dialed PA
(72)-6755 but residents of Rochester which had DDD To Buffalo (and, I
suspect, long distance operators) were instructed to dial the first *3*
letters of the exchange name, thus to reach me they would dial PAR
(727)-6755.
While at WE I looked up, as a matter of curiosity, the office drawings of
the last manual CO to convert to dial in New York City where I grew up.
When the CIty Island 8 central office was converted the new exchange was
ordered and installed as the TUlip 5 exchange but between installation and
cutover New York Telephone decided to switch from exchange names to
arbitrary 2-Letter combinations and it appeared in the new telephone
directory as TT 5 which is dialed exactly the same as TUlip 5. The dial
conversion could in fact have been done without changing the exchange name
as people elsewhere in New York City had been dialing CIty Island 8 for
years, reaching a call indicator in front of the inward operator at CIty
Island 8 who completed the call without their being aware that an operator
was involved in the call.
From ptownson Tue Sep 10 11:33:14 1996
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Path: comp!plaws
From: plaws@comp.uark.edu (Peter Laws)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Recommended "EXchange" Names
Date: 10 Sep 1996 15:31:15 GMT
Organization: The University of Arkansas
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Mark J. Cuccia <mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu> writes:
> Please note that the 55x, 57x, 95x and 97x ranges are not included. In
> the original list, it states "Reserved for Radiotelephone Service".
[...]
> As for "Radiotelephone" service in the 55, 57, 95, 97 (JKL/PRS/WXY) ranges,
> I do remember many older mobile phones had ID numbers of the form "KK-xxxx"
> or "WJ-xxxx", etc.
Sure. W and K are two of the radio callsign series assigned to the USA,
the others being AA-AL and N. Those last two were almost exclusively
military or government until the last 20 years or so.
Peter "stuck in prefix 579" Laws
TELECOM Digest Editor (ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu)