714/657 Area Codes

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Bootstrap Bill

We should scrap the whole phone system and start from scratch.

Most people have free domestic long distance. Why do we need localized area codes?

Because we need more than 8 million phone numbers. As mentioned earlier, seven digit phone numbers only allow for a little less than 8 million individual numbers (eliminating all numbers starting with a 0 or a 1 as well as certain prefixes such as 911). The area codes increases the possible numbers to just under 800 million. To throw out the existing system at this point would be costly, unwieldy, and unnecessary. By integrating area codes as part of everyone's normal phone number, the system is just evolving to accommodate capacity needs.

The first three digits of a 7-digit phone number were, and for the most part still are, geographic in nature: adding an area code is just an extension of the same process.

I've had to delete the rest of my post to instead point you to this site on the history of phone numbers.