Area Codes

November 10, 2009

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Profile America — Tuesday, November 10th. A key part of daily life was first demonstrated on this date in 1951 — when telephone area codes were introduced. The mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, made the first official call, picking up the phone and directly dialing his counterpart in Alameda, California. At the time, all long-distance calls went through operators, but in a few years every customer in the U.S. could directly dial long-distance calls. To begin with, there were 87 exchanges, but with the explosion in faxes, modems and cell phones, the U.S. is fast running out of 10-digit phone numbers. Every day in the U.S. we make 420 billion local calls, and that does not count our cell phone calls. Profile America is in its 13th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events 2009, p. 544
www.nanpa.com
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 1110
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2009edition.html