A Brief History and the Uses of the Area Code
Area codes are also called Numbering Plan and are used in telecommunications to allocate telephone numbers to subscribers and to direct telephone calls in a telephone network. They are used in telephone plans to indicate geographical areas within a country that are covered by many telephone exchanges. It is necessary to use these codes if you are dialling from outside the code area, from a mobile phone or from within an overlay plan. However, when used outside North America, in mobile phones and for non- geographic numbers, the code is not used to refer to a geographical area. One does not have to include the codes if he is dialling from the same area.
Information on codes is always indicated in postal and telephone directories which can be found in a post office near you. When dialling a number, the code usually comes immediately after the national access code or in the case of an international call, the international access code and the national access code. In making the international call the digit zero is dropped before indicating the local code. In the past the codes were assigned based on the duration it took a rotary dial phone to dial the area code. The rotary dial had to return to the home position and this determined which number was assigned to the specific area. Densely populated areas had huge call volumes and were assigned numbers that could be dialled quickly from the rotary dial phones, i.e. numbers that took a short time to return to the home position like 1, 2, 3 and 4. Less densely populated areas got numbers like 7, 8, 9 and 0 since they had less congestion. This numbering system became obsolete with the introduction of the touch tone phones which allowed for instant digit entry. Today a code is necessary to ease the call routing process. If you find it difficult to get the area code of a certain place you can use to post office locator available even online.
Information on codes is always indicated in postal and telephone directories which can be found in a post office near you. When dialling a number, the code usually comes immediately after the national access code or in the case of an international call, the international access code and the national access code. In making the international call the digit zero is dropped before indicating the local code. In the past the codes were assigned based on the duration it took a rotary dial phone to dial the area code. The rotary dial had to return to the home position and this determined which number was assigned to the specific area. Densely populated areas had huge call volumes and were assigned numbers that could be dialled quickly from the rotary dial phones, i.e. numbers that took a short time to return to the home position like 1, 2, 3 and 4. Less densely populated areas got numbers like 7, 8, 9 and 0 since they had less congestion. This numbering system became obsolete with the introduction of the touch tone phones which allowed for instant digit entry. Today a code is necessary to ease the call routing process. If you find it difficult to get the area code of a certain place you can use to post office locator available even online.
