Aha Mark and Ed!   
      
   Another Historipit!   
      
    EV> I just got a notice in the latest Telephone bill that another Area   
    EV> Code will be added to this area and except for 911 and 411 and a   
    EV> few other 3 numbered phone numbers everyone will have to dial ten   
    EV> digits even to talk to the neighbor who has a phone number with the   
    EV> same Area Code after some date in February 2015.   
      
    ml> we've been doing that for a few years now...   
      
    ml> the problem here is that, like in my area, there are identical numbers    
    ml> in ajoining areacodes... consider this... you dial    
    ml> just seven digits and you're near the areacode    
    ml> boundry... which one of those two duplicated numbers    
    ml> are you trying to reach? i used to get phone calls all    
    ml> the time from folks trying to set up appointments for    
    ml> work on their cars... if they had used all ten digits,    
    ml> they would not have been calling the wrong number and    
    ml> they would not have been causing me to have more    
    ml> expensive phone bills... i finally set my voice mail    
    ml> recording to say something like "if you are calling    
    ml> about work on your car, hang up and use the proper    
    ml> areacode when you dial the number otherwise, leave me    
    ml> a message and i'll get back to you as soon as    
    ml> possible!" ;)   
      
   A lot more than most folks might realize traces back to telephony!  And Fido   
   has been a part of this even during it's creation back in ... !  Orignally as   
   I have posted long ago during the age of 300 and 1000 baud modems before there   
   was ever an Internet as such the telco's were charging anyone money for what   
   was considered long distance calls for even from one city to another even   
   twenty miles away.  During the age of Stroweger Switches and so on.  I've   
   noted before that the phone company was FURIOUS when I figured out how to   
   digitize digital messages, which obviously could include just a simple dial   
   connect code to any phone number to a remote Fido node or server and get even   
   VERY interesting 'data' via ham radio CW/Digital HF and VHF stations at NO   
   CHARGE even to, say, Perth, Australia from Net 117 in Bryan, College Station,   
   Texas.  Even for even very good or very evil Aggies!  Which at that time were   
   being able to pay for their phone LD charges by 'privately' entering into   
   pornography whatever and scheduling over the PAID phone lines so they could   
   bring FidoNet upward and upward.  NOT AT ALL ME!  I still remeber in horror   
   the morning I woke up and when I first looked out the front door at the house,   
   all the original FidoNet Net117 server equipment was piled up on my front   
   porch that had been siezed from the original site and I was 'ordered' to   
   continue the service forever for Net117 by the COPS because I could trace all   
   the calls and data and so on and on that time!  Oh well...   
      
   But think about this!  Obviously a telephone number was, at that time in the   
   world of telecommunications, the same thing as an IP network number today! OK,   
   back when the IBM Main Frame only had 64K of memory and had grown a little   
   bit!  And I had created the machine language and assembly language computer   
   code to merge and route all this stuff even to ham radio sites all over the   
   world even before my Heathkit H89 I still have today?   
      
   Sure!  This all traces from the time that telephone 'numbers' were only a   
   total of seven digits!  Which, then morphed to the SAME 'numbers' with the   
   Area Code extra three digits.  Originally even the 409 area code that was 'in   
   effect' for us all here included even Houston and us at 100 miles North of   
   Houston!  Net 117 in FidoNet was **FAR** bigger than Net 106 in Houston!  Even   
   an Aggie FidoNet user was so fascinated with the ACCIDENTAL creation of the   
   first Virus ever that came from my computer from code that Paul Sittler wrote   
   when he forgot to erase each individual message for original EOC FidoNet   
   Private Node numbers that I was developing for the protection of all of us in   
   coordination with ARRL support in case somebody popped an atomic bomb on Texas   
   A&M here.  But think about this. It all relates to even TELEPHONE NUMBERS and   
   AREA CODES, folks.   
      
   If you have a phone number 123-4567 and they make a new area code 123 even   
   back then you could cause all kinds of problems if you by chance, or, grin, as   
   an evil weavel, dialed that number 123-4567 WITHOUT a 1- for the long distance   
   number even back in the 1970-1980 time-line!  Plus, if your real original   
   number was perhaps targeted for this or that and the telephone company gave   
   you a new number to 'escape' dis or dat, what happens if they give that old   
   123-4567 number to someone else because they desparately need all the possible   
   number combinations for area code 123?  Hmmmmmmm.   
      
   Well, believe it or not, the original assigned number for 117/3001 here for me   
   back in the around the late 80's was actually the emergency inbound telephone   
   number for Scott and White Hospital!  Which I NEVER knew at all when I got it   
   and it became part of FidoNet and the normal FidoNet NodeList! I had TONS of   
   strange calls that hit 117/3001 that just hung up.  Now, yes, I was involved   
   with the original 'creation' of CNID we see on phones today. But we won't go   
   into that here.  I never knew for years about the original source of that   
   number, just let all the trash hit the OPUS logs and so on. Then,   
   ACCIDENTALLY, I found out about the original number use!  HMMMM..   
      
   You may not believe this but it is TRUE.  Even to this day, though VERY rarely   
   now that a CNID shows the name for a number, I'll be sitting here with Fido   
   and the large relay rack worth of my stuff, and notice my total phone logging   
   DIGITAL ID data ONLY logging that now has over 700,000 phone call logs in it   
   as a result of the massive other mess I have to keep for the rest of my life.    
   I'll see a woman's name on the LOCAL CNID inbound log to 117/3001.  Often two   
   or more calls in a row,  I will interrupt the system and call that number.    
   She will be an old lady desparately trying to reach Scott & White.  Or can   
   this be and accident?  Strangely the master number for another 231-1234 number   
   here in College Station is for the local police department!  And she is   
   mis-dialing that 231 as 123!  I've helped HUNDREDS of women involved with this   
   over nearly 40 years now!   
      
   Finally, I did all the original research for the original PAGER stuff in our   
   area.  I am required to keep a plain simple pager to this day as well!  Turns   
   put that a huge number of a local large Texas Prison System folks here in our   
   Bryan area are from an area code that begins with the same '542' area code   
   that is for the LOCAL EXCHAGE number in OUR area code for a distant city in it   
   with my pager number to this day!  Well THOUSANDS of folks in the prison   
   system didn't dial any 1- long distance number trying to reach these folks and   
   so.  You guessed it.  My pager has gotten TONS of false calls to it that   
   'sync' with the first seven digits of those agents assigned telco 542   
   numbers!  It has taken me about six years to get even the Texas Prison System   
   to really 'train' their crew to use 1- in these days of celly phones.  When   
   not using celly phones but plain dial local lines.   
      
   But they have, blessedly, made HUGE progress at this.  Wait!  Do all the calls   
   from this come from PROPER calls made from wherever into all this? Who knows?    
   I can't even trace that in these days of telephony corruption.   
      
   Mike Luther as N117C from 1:117/100   
      
   ---   
    * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)