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When I was a kid in the 80's (and probably early 90's) I remember visiting my grandparents and other family in Frederick, Oklahoma, and everyone there had 5-dig
by coreyp_1 3y ago
When I was a kid in the 80's (and probably early 90's) I remember visiting my grandparents and other family in Frederick, Oklahoma, and everyone there had 5-digit phone numbers. I still remember my Aunt's #, because we would stay with my grandmother for weeks at a time in the summer and would often call over to my cousin's house.
- throwaway8401 3y agoIn my country, you did not have to use area codes when dialing a local phone number. I guess you had the same experience
- brightsize 3y agoSimilar: I was a kid in S. VT in the 60s/70s and everyone using the phone system used five-digit dialing. You were assigned a 254-xxxx or 257-xxxx number, but when dialing you only had to use the last five #s, as the "25" prefix was implicit. I think there was a bias on the part of the phone company for assigning 254- prefixes to residences and 257- ones to businesses, but I'm not sure how strict they were about it. I can't recall if using the full seven digits worked when calling within those two prefixes, but I think that it did. I don't remember anyone ever using alphabetic prefixes, which makes me wonder if they were perhaps used there before I was born or if it was a convention only in big cities (my town was ~10K, a bit under).