TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Enterprise and Zenith Numbers

Re: Enterprise and Zenith Numbers

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
9 May 2007 14:30:52 -0700

On May 9, 2:51 am, Mike Z <mike2007...@notchur.biz> wrote:

> Most dials don't have a 'Z' on them, although now-a-days you will find
> dials with a 'Q' along with P/R/S on the '7', and a 'Z' along with
> W/X/Y on the '9'. But there were some dials in the old days which had
> a 'Z' on the '0'.

My 302 set from 1948 has a "Z" on the dial in the 0 (oper) position,
and I've seen lots of phones like this. Would anyone know what this
was used for at the time, if anything?

> And there was '131' for reaching distant Directory or Information. ...

Where did the operator dial this? That is, on cord boards, the
operator answered an incoming call from a subscriber who dialed zero.
She would then place the other half of the cord pair into a jack based
on the caller's request. For example, say the caller wanted "ADams
5-2368". The operator might have a jack strip for ADams5 and just
need to dial the 2368. Or, the operator may have to dial the whole
number in a different jack group.

For long distance, the operator could dial the NPA+NNX+nnnn. Or, she
could dial a special operator's routing code to reach an operator in a
distant city. This was done in the old days but also in case of
trouble if the automatic routing failed. Route rate kept a directory
of that. As trunks were added and deleted, these codes evolved. I
wonder if AT&T operators today can even manually build up a call any
more?

Did operators have special service jack strips where these codes were
dialed?

I've always wanted to learn more details about the outgoing jack
groups on cord dial-assistance boards.

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