Saying Goodbye to Seven Digit Dialing

Years ago, spouse and I visited a rural telephone museum in Georgia. Ever since then, I've had a bit of a fascination with older forms of communication.  Please bear with me here, because there's some important information here if you live in the United States.

Some history:

Once upon a time, in the United States, phone numbers had four digits. This was back in the day (and you predate me if you remember those days) when operators had to manually complete the phone call for you. You can still see these four digit numbers in old advertisements. They phased this out nationwide between 1947 and 1951, (earlier in some places) when "exchanges" were introduced nationwide. 

This was so dialing could replace the ever present operator except when you called the operator (by dialing "zero") on purpose.  (This explanation is an oversimplification, and if you care, here's a more detailed explanation.)

These changes must have been painful for adults, I now realize.

I  remember when exchanges were names, as you can hear from this Glenn Miller classic, PEnnsylvania 6-5000.   (I love it when his orchestra yells out "Pennsylvania 6-5 oh oh oh").  This would have been dialed (remember dialing?) PE6-5000.  Eventually, the exchange names became numbers (the first two letters mapped to numbers) and PE6-5000 became 736-5000. (No, please, don't dial it to see what happens!)

"Yukon", as another example, became the exchange"98" and a third digit. That matters now for a lot of people.

Still with me?

At this time, all local U.S. phone numbers have seven digits, for example, 555-1212. You also have a three digit area code.  If you call a number outside your area code, you dial the area code first.  If you are making a local call, you don't dial it (although there are some exceptions.)

There are about 325 area codes in the United States, representing different areas of the country.  Sometimes, bigger cities have more than one area code.  New York City residents cope with six area codes. 

Finally, there are some three digit nationwide numbers, such as 911. Americans use 911 to call our emergency services - police, fire and ambulances (ONLY in case of emergency). We're also going to get another three digit number next year, 988.  It's for a good cause, but it's going to be an adjustment.

Fast forward now to July 22, 2022, the day the United States will adopt the three digits "988" as the nationwide number for the suicide prevention hotline.

But what about all those people in areas with 988 exchanges? If they call a number beginning with 988 won't there be a problem?

Well, yes.

So, starting on October 24 (that's next week, dear readers), for anyone in an area code which has a 988 exchange, we will have to dial an area code before all phone numbers.   It will be the only way to differentiate calls to a local 988 exchange vs. calls to the suicide prevention hotline, and we'll have some time to get used to the new dialing before the suicide hotline 988 becomes active. 

DON'T CALL 988 FOR THE SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE UNTIL JULY 16 2022.  UNTIL THEN, THE NUMBER IS 1-800-273-8255.

I live in one of the affected area codes.

Habits of 60 plus years are sure hard to break, never mind having to go through my cell phone's contacts list and add the area code to all my local numbers.   People with certain automated systems are going to have to reprogram them, too.

Of course, my New York City relatives have had to dial 10 digits for the last few years, but now most of us can feel their pain.

It's not my favorite thing, but I tell myself....change can be good.

It's for a good cause.

Are you affected?