Not so different from what it was in the 1930s. Tack on the modern 212 area code and you’ve got a modern, 10-digit phone number. So, to reach the hotel in the 1930s, people would dial PE6-5000 or 736-5000, swapping in numbers for letters. Let’s break it down: The Pennsylvania Hotel was located nearest the Pennsylvania telephone exchange, or PE, named for Penn Station in New York City. All you have to do is add on the modern area code. This phone number, immortalized in a Glen Miller song, will, to this day, connect you to the front desk of The Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. There are two famous examples you might be familiar with: PENNSYLVANIA 6-5000 The two letters signified the closest telephone exchange, and the five numbers were the assigned phone number. Known as the 2L-5N, or “two letter and 5 number” system, phone numbers were assigned to residents based on location. The alphanumeric code used won’t look familiar to anyone today. Those 10 trusty numbersīefore there were 10 digits in a phone number (not including country codes), there was an alphanumeric code to designate a phone number. But let’s back up a little bit and look at how we ended up with the phone number we use today. Why has all this innovation stopped? In our opinion, there’s still work to be done. Since then, the phone number has remained static. Neil Papworth, a 22-year old developer and test engineer for Vodafone UK, texted Richard Jarvis: “Merry Christmas.” The text was sent from a computer, but received by Jarvis, a Vodafone executive, at the company holiday party on an Orbitel 901. In fact, the most recent innovation on the phone number took place more than 25 years ago, in 1992. Through it all, one thing hasn’t changed much: the phone number. Not to mention the mobile phone and its more intelligent grandchild, the smartphone. Once the technology was established, telephone companies were started, phone numbers were invented, area codes were designated, switchboard operators were hired, and people connected to emergency services by dialing 911. And for that call, since there were only two phones in existence at the time, he didn’t even have to dial a phone number. The telephone has gone through many iterations and changes since that day in 1876 when Bell made the first phone call to his assistant in the other room. But he probably wouldn’t recognize the devices we carry in our pockets as phones in the first place. If you told Alexander Graham Bell that one day we would all carry the technology he used to make the first phone call in our pockets, and that we could reach anyone in the world in seconds, he’d be as happy as a kid in a candy shop.
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