telecom, Q and Z on Dials - Standards?

by **hancock4** » Sun, 15 Aug 2004 10:28:34 GMT

We know that the letters on telephone dials and keypads date from the
days that exchanges had names, not digits. The Bell System destroyed
the last remnant of this in Philadelphia in 1980.

Dials would have gone all numeric and been easier to read, but by that
time many companies used all letters as easy-to-remember phone numbers
(ie DIAL-LAW for a lawyer or 1-800-USA-RAIL for Amtrak, so letters
remained.

I noticed on the most modern dials the letters Q and Z were added
to 7 and 9 respectively. This makes sense. However, on earlier
Bell System dials, the Z was over the zero-operator, so it does
mark a change.

I just curious, with the demise of the Bell System, if there was any
organization that sets standards for phones, esp new models, and
decided that indeed Q and Z would go over 7 and 9.

In a separate post, someone discussed London dials. What do
modern dials look like today in the rest of the world. Do they
even have letters? If so, are they over the same digits as us?

[public replies please]

by **Joseph** » Mon, 16 Aug 2004 11:24:53 GMT

On 14 Aug 2004 19:28:34 -0700, XXXX@XXXXX.COM (Lisa Hancock)

The present standard 2 ABC, 3 DEF, 4 GHI, 5 JKL, 6 MNO, 7 PQRS, 8
TUV, 9 WXYZ was agreed upon by the ITU.

Sometimes it matters where the phones are from, but generally the ITU
standard makes it so that all dials can have letters with the numbers.
Generally if you'll see that phones have the letters as above but
generally will not have anything on the 0 key even though in the US
and in Canada the 0 position by itself used to have the word Operator
or abbreviated Oper. in the zero spot. Northern Electric/Northern
Telecom/Nortel has not had operator on any of their sets even the 2500
sets for many many years. I think their 500 sets had the word
diagonally Operator but I think that was the end of it for Northern
Electric/Northern Telecom/Nortel.

by **Paul Coxwell** » Thu, 19 Aug 2004 21:57:07 GMT

> In a separate post, someone discussed London dials. What do

Lisa,

As far as British dials are concerned, there were some variants in the
very early days, but they were soon standardized as follows (notice
that the location of the letter "O" is the only difference between
this and the standard U.S. dial):

1 -
2 ABC
3 DEF
4 GHI
5 JKL
6 MN
7 PRS
8 TUV
9 WXY
0 O / Operator

Not all telephones were supplied with lettered dials however. They
were required for London and the other 3L-4N cities, and for areas
which could dial directly into these urban centers, but as letters
were not used in most other areas the GPO supplied phones fitted with
dials which had just numbers.

When the STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing) system started to go into
service in the late 1950s, letters were employed (e.g. 0PL2 =
Plymouth), so phones with STD access then needed lettered dials. By
the mid 1960s, however, the decision had been made to drop letters
entirely, so this use was short-lived, and for many areas letters had
gone before STD service was available. Thus many parts of the country
never had any need for lettered dials at all.

The introduction of STD also resulted in 0 being used as the access
prefix, so "Operator" was dropped from the zero position and "Q" was
added, although little -- if ever -- used.

So by the end of the 1960s there were no letters in STD codes, and
all-figure numbering in the cities that were previously 3L-4N. From
that point onward the GPO issued telephones with number-only dials.
Their push-button phones followed suit, having only numbers on the
buttons (by the way, these weren't TouchTone at this time, but a
store/pulse-dial arrangement).

Number-only dials/keypads became the norm right through the 1970s and
well into the 1980s after privatization and the formation of British
Telecom.

Letters have only made a re-appearance in comparatively recent years
with the vast range of imported equipment now on sale. This new
generation of lettered keypads (now DTMF) uses the now-international
system with 6=MNO, 7=PQRS, 9=WXYZ. That should be confusing for any
youngsters looking at old exchange names and not realizing that some
letters were assigned differently on the old dials.

By the way, the use of letters as a convenient way to promote your
business ("Call 222-TAXI" etc.) never really got off the ground over
here. As letters were not universally printed on dials, and from the
late-1960s on the GPO issued number-only dials to everyone, that's not
surprising, of course. A few businesses have taken to this approach
recently, but it's still nothing like as common as in the United
States. Naturally, any business advertising in this way would really
need to consider the fact that they're going to make life much harder
for the many people who still use 1980s phones with no letters.

Paul

telecom, Q and Z on Dials - Standards?

telecom >> Q and Z on Dials - Standards?

telecom >> Q and Z on Dials - Standards?

telecom >> Q and Z on Dials - Standards?