Jim Phillips wrote:
>
> Art says:
>
> >     Welcome to the '90's ... why don't we just increase the number of
> >digits in a phone number?????  8 or 9 digits and say a 4 digit area code
> >would buy us more time...wouldn't it?
>
> Well, I know this has been debated here before, but the bottom line is
> all those phone systems/PBX's out there that would have to be reprogrammed
> to accept the longer phone numbers.  We did this previously at another
> employer of mine at which we had a Northern Telecom SL1.  The old way
> of formatting area codes and exchanges was to allow area codes to have
> only a second digit of "0" or "1" and to *not* allow any exchanges
> with a second digit of "0" or "1".  The telco's or government or
> whomever decided that the old area code format was too limiting and
> decided to allow any digits for either exchanges or area codes.  This
> is why you have to dial an area code today when calling long distance
> in your own area code.  Our SL1 was programmed to handle the old way
> and we had to convert it to the new way because if it saw an exchange
> with a "0" or "1" as the second digit, it assumed it was an area code,
> and expected another seven digits after that.
>
OK, Jim, how does an overlay solve the problem?  The PBX's have
to be
reprogrammed to put in the area code for all numbers in an
overlay
situation, so reprogramming is required in any case.

Nick D.