What Have the Past 20 Years Done for Us with the Phone?
It really doesn’t take much of a look back in history to find some interesting things out about the telephones that we are currently using. Alexander Graham Bell started the entire thing but it is not even necessary for us to go back to that century for the purpose of this article. Just looking back a couple of decades is interesting enough.
Just a few short decades ago, the telephone company was operated manually by a series of operators that sat behind large switch boards. Whenever a call would come in, the operator would pick up the phone and find out where it was being routed to and then they would manually plug-in in order to route the call through. The system worked well for a number of years, but eventually it needed to be upgraded and the telephone company knew that.
It was during this period of time whenever they came up with the 10 digit telephone system, the same one that we are using today. Using this system, the computers at the phone company were able to identify where the telephone number was originating from and then they could automatically connect it to whatever number it was dialing. It automated everything, removing the process of having somebody manually plug things in.
The first three digits of the telephone number were handed out to different areas of the country and they became known as the area code. This is still true, even today. By looking at an area code, you will be able to tell a general area of where the telephone call came from. Although these area codes are being used up rather quickly, there are still plenty of them left and it should work well into the foreseeable future.
The next three digits that you dial whenever you are dialing a 10 digit number is more localized than the area code. Since there are 999 different variations that can be used within any given area code, it helps you to narrow down exactly where the telephone number is going to. This also helps the computers to route the call quickly.
Most of us are familiar with the pushbutton telephones that are currently being used but just a few short decades ago, the rotary phone was in existence. If you are unfamiliar with the rotary phone, it was a telephone with a large dial on the front which spun in a clockwise direction. You would put your finger in the hole that corresponded with the number that you were dialing and spin it to the right. As it would spin back, a number of clicks would be audible which would let the telephone company know which number you were dialing.
Now, we have cellular telephones and fax machines that are eating up an enormous amount of telephone numbers, along with using additional area codes from the available pool of numbers. Most of us could not imagine a day whenever we did not have the cellular phone, but it wasn’t all that long ago that nobody carried them around.
It would be nice to be able to peer into the future and see what the technological advances are going to bring to us. Until that time, however, the simple 10 digit number is all that is necessary for us to talk to anybody, at any place in the country.