Talk:Telephone exchange names

+63 948 878 8020

Bell System Practice suggested these exchange names
70.108.195.219 (talk) 10:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Blues Brothers comment
Recent add:

"In the 1980 film, The Blues Brothers, several examples of 'old style' exchange numbers can be seen, such as on the business card handed to the mens-only hotel clerk by a police officer. This suggests that even as late as the early 1980s, the move away from exchange names was not yet 100% complete."

I think this should be considered more a stylistic riff than a reflection of the state of the transition away from exchange names. Although set in contemporary times, the movie is trying to pick up an earlier vibe, and this part of that attempt. By 1980, exchange names were only used nostalgically. Think of this as being something like the phones with dials and TVs with round channel knobs in Calvin and Hobbes -- both utterly obsolete at the time Bill Watterson was drawing them, and he was well aware of this, but liked the way they looked. Same thing with John Landis and The Blues Brothers.--NapoliRoma 06:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Old thread, but... Not sure about that. Even in 1983 and 1984 I was still seeing exchange names listed here and there, so I'm not sure how accurate your assertion is (I still remember a YUkon number I learned in the '80s [YUkon 4-9463]... and I was only a little kid in the '80s, born long past when exchange names supposedly were no longer existent). Even your comment about Calvin and Hobbes seems wrong since even in the late-'90s TVs were still being sold with "klunk-klunk" round dials (the last CRT tv I bought, in fact, had round knobs, and that was in the 2000s... factory new, not second-hand [I wanted push buttons and a remote, but I was poor at the time, so went cheap]), but C&H started in the mid-'80s. That's actually how I ended up on this page today—I remember them still in use in the early-1980s in urban SoCal, as a kid, long past when they should have been gone. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

"commercial vehicle"?
Under "Phase-in of All-number Calling", it says "Even today, however, it is not uncommon in New York City to see a brand new commercial vehicle with a telephone number such as 'JA 6-xxxx'." What the heck does that mean exactly? Also, if my phone number was 926-5309, how would that be written out today as a "2-5 numbers" or 2L-5D number? WAverly 6-5309?--Ragemanchoo 13:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * A commercial vehicle is a vehicle used for the purposes of commerce, such as a bakery truck or plumber's van, as opposed to a personal vehicle. A brand new commercial vehicle would be one that had just been put into use.  The editor is noting surprise that a newly deployed vehicle of this kind in the 21st century would still be using exchange names.--NapoliRoma 15:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

False datas for Parisians numbers
I had an old french telephone directory and never in I read Pompadour (706, no exchange), Louvre (508, in fact GUtenberg) an Pigalle (744 in fact TRUdaine).Philippenusbaumer (talk) 17:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)


 * POMpadour, LOUvre, and PIGalle were certainly all valid Paris exchanges. Remember that not every exchange name was in use right from the start, some were added as the years went by to cater for growth, so the exact list of exchange names you find in a directory will depend upon how old that directory happens to be.


 * Also, you seem to have some of the other names and numerical equivalents mixed up. Yes, there were GUTenberg and TRUdaine exchanges, but GUTenberg was 488 (not 508), and TRUdaine was 878 (not 744).   146.90.55.170 (talk) 20:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


 * (re:you seem to have some of the other names and numerical equivalents mixed up) The article needs more information on European non-standard number/letter mappings. Also, in the days of local manual exchanges, some businesses would have paid for "foreign exchange" lines, where they would want their same numerical number in more exchanges than their geographically-local exchange. They could also have used different exchange listings as a way to distribute their incoming call volume.71.230.16.111 (talk) 20:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

London cutover
The first (London) Director exchange Holburn Tandem at 270 High Holburn was opened in 1927 according to the BT Archives website, although it says (cryptically) that the “director” was introduced in 1922. There were prrobably some changes to London manual exchange names and numbers needed before the cutover of Holburn Tandem in 1927. Hugo999 (talk) 23:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

GArfield 1-2323
A Cleveland Ohio Business "Cleveland replacement windows and vinyl company" Still advertises it,s phone number as GArfeild 1-2323 in most recent years an 800 has been put in front of it. The company's website is also http://www.garfield12323.com/  any one that's grow up in North East Ohio ( Cleaveland Akron canton Youngstown and even Toledo to the west grew up singing  the GArfield 1-2323 Jingle .  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.195.26 (talk) 13:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Exchange Exceptions - Scope of Page
Local traditions sometimes provided exceptions to the standard Bell System exchange names. In San Francisco the names BAyview and LOmbard were in use, reflecting local geographic place or street names.

The scope of this page is not just telecommunications - it might be equally or more appropriate if it were included in a historical context like the History of Technology portal. --Mccainre (talk) 16:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Table = Letters
Might as well, since that's what you dial. 108.66.234.23 (talk) 01:51, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Which names correspond to which codes?
For example, which 22 is AC? Which ones are BA or CA? 108.65.80.28 (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no fixed arrangement. In Edmonton, Canada, numbers that numerically were 488-xxxx were HUnter 8, while 489-xxxx were HUdson 9; they were in geographically different areas of the city, so did not use the same name. On the other hand, 422 and 424 were in the same area, so both were GArden. GBC (talk) 14:09, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

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Fictitious exchanges
Was KLondike (which translates to 55) an officially designated fictitious exchange used on 1950's TV shows and movies, the early equivalent to the 555 prefix?

Radio identifiers based on 55, 57, 95, 97
Not all companies used this scheme. British Columbia Telephone (and possibly also Quebec Telephone, owned by the same company as owned BC Tel) used a very different scheme, e.g. N41 and others (I have a multi-page document in my collection, but I don't have it handy). As to the information deleted by User:Kbrose, Northwestel of Whitehorse and AGT of Alberta used pairs of letters to identify channel frequencies.

For Northwestel, using a 12-channel mobile, for frequencies at 30 kHz intervals from 152.51 MHz to 152.84 MHz, the identifications were JL, YL, JP, YP, YJ, YK, JS, YS, YR, JK, JR, JW. For AGT, using a 24-channel mobile, for frequencies at 15 kHz intervals from 152.495 to 152.840 MHz, the identifications were XJ, JL, XK, YL, XL, JP, XP, YP, XR, YJ, XS, YK, XT, JS, XU, YS, XV, YR, XW, JK, XX, JR, XY, JW.

Say that I wanted to call a radio on a specific Whitehorse channel that I knew the called party stood by on with a voice call receiver. I would ask the operator to call 2M-6561 on the Whitehorse YJ channel. The operator would plug into that channel (on a cordboard), and announce, "Whitehorse YJ calling 2M-6561... 2M-6561... 2M-6561." Thusly, the two-letter combination, representing 95 for YJ, were used to identify channels. BC Tel had its own system, and, like AGT, users roamed into our Northwestel area, and BC Tel users had those unusual identifiers.

Also deleted by Kbrose: this system was hopelessly crowded in major cities by the 1970s, with waiting lists of people who couldn't get service until someone else was canceled. The service continued well into the 1990s in more remote areas, and even into the 2000-2010 period in Yukon and the N.W.T. before satellite became affordable or cellular service - with much shorter distance functionality - reached more areas outside of communities. GBC (talk) 14:11, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
 * What has all this to do with central office names? kbrose (talk) 04:05, 15 May 2023 (UTC)