By the Numbers

For a businessman in Trenton who wants to call the Western Electric Co. in Manhattan--but doesn't know the number--it is about as easy as falling off a logarithm: first he dials 2125551212 (Information in Manhattan), then 2125712345 for Western Electric. If he is lucky he won't have to give an extension number for the man he wants to talk to; if he is luckier, he can still remember why he was calling in the first place.

This numerologicl nightmare is only a foretaste of what the future holds for dialers when the Bell Telephone System's ANC (All-Number-Calling) plan goes into effect all over the U.S. Already 11 million of the 76 million telephones in the U.S. are on ANC. The Bell System and 3,000 independent companies expect to convert all telephones in five years a projected 95 million.

Lost Lust. In the Orwellian world of ANC there will be no telephone exchanges to take pride of comfort in. Philadelphia's old-guard PEnnypacker and stalwart FIdelity will be gone; San Francisco will lose its lusty KLondike and sunny VAlencia; Mobile's TUlip will wither alongside Cincinnati's BRamble and Santa Fe's YUcca. Fenton, MO., will be torn from it's cozy FIreside, while Chester, Pa., and its saucy GYpsy will be parted. NIghtingale and HYacinth will nevermore breathe their poetry over Brooklyn's wires. The sands are running out fpr such venerable status symbols as Upper East Side Manhattan's BUtterfield 8 and REgent 4. They will some day be as obsolete as morning coats on Easter Sunday.

Official AMerican Telephone & Telegraph Co., proprietors of the Bell System, admits a twinge of REgret over the passing of the time-honored names, many of which are holdovers from the days of "Hello, Central, give me Main 444." But the telephone company maintains that there is no other choice in the face of rapidly expanding dialing facilities and the increase in the number of telephone sets across the nation.

Letters & Holes. There are only eight holes with three letters each on the dial (Q and Z don't rate a spot), producing 64 possible two-letter combinations (letters that begin a recognizable name or word) for exchange-namers to work with.

But four of the combinations involving letters J, K, L, P, R, S, W, X, Y are deemed useless on the ground that no one could countenance a telephone number beginning with something like YPres, YLang, WRath or KRemlin. That leaves only 60. Even with an additional number tacked onto the two-letter code, creating exchanges like PRospect 1 up through PRospect 9, there are still only 540 combinations available. This was more than enough until Direct Distance Dialing came on the scene in 1951. The U.S. is now divided into 105 code areas, each having its own three-digit number; within any single DDD area, no two telephone numbers can be the same--and simple mathematics shows that 540 central offices are not enough for some of the more populous dialing areas.

All-Number Calling was the answer to the dilemma. Numbers appear at ten holes on a dial, and ANC gives 800 (8 times 10 times 10) possible three-digit central-office codes* an increase of nearly 50%.

Other advantages claimed for ANC: elimination of dialing errors caused by sound-alike exchange names such as MItchell and MUtual; no more confusion over dialing PA for PEnnsylvania instead of PE; elimination of letters themselves from dials, making them easier to use; the possibility of worldwide direct dialing, even to countries with exotic alphabets. Says Leland B. Lindberg, American Telephone & Telegraph spokesman: "This is the least undesirable way of increasing combinations."

The Other Side. Certainly least undesirable from the company's point of view, but what about the man on the other side of the dial? Says Dr. Leo Goldberger, of N.Y.U.'s Research Center for Mental Health: "Long series of numbers, such as Army serial numbers, have come to connote loss of individual identity: one becomes--to add insult to injury--not only an insignificant cog in a great machine, but anonymous as well." Unpleasant things, he feels, are not only more difficult to memorize, but also more likely to be forgotten.

But telephone researchers insist that over the short time it takes between looking up a number and dialing it, ANC's seven-digit numbers are just as easy to recall as those with two letters and five numbers. They admit, however, that permanently memorizing All-Number numbers takes a little more effort. An officially recommended procedure is to group the numbers into two parts, such as 571 (pause) 2345.

Calling Daddy. Meanwhile, in U.S. cities such as Chicago and Washington, where ANC's no-nonsense hand has already been felt, citizens are struggling along with a dual system. Some of them are making up their own exchanges, as memory jogs.-- Conservative employees of one Chicago firm with the new 467 central office code are giving out their number as G.O.P.

A new telephone problem, already ushered in with the era of DDD, and one which ANC can only make more acute: playful tots who want to "call Daddy at the office" and end up dialing a number in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (code: 306).

The phone company is presently bending over backward to be nice in such in stances, but the DDD honeymoon may not last forever. In the not-too-distant time when any idly spun combination of seven numbers will ring somebody, some where, stern household telephone discipline will be needed, or Daddy's phone bills may be in seven figures too.

*Only eight of the numbers can be used for the first digit of a central office code since 0 (zero), now used to dial the Operator, is also reserved for a future person-to-person prefix; 1 will be used for station-to-station calls.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.