a very nice man wrote on Jan 4
th, 2006 at 6:46pm:
Just a quick one to TrevorD's history review.
Even the old phones had letters coinciding with their numbers, as we do today.
In fact, yes old dial phones did have letters - but not quite "as we do today".
At least the letter O (and, I believe, also Q) were on the digit 0 (zero), instead of on 6 & 7, respectively, as they are today.
Hence, the old HOLborn exchange in London became 01-405 (not 465), now of course 020-7405 xxxx;
and also the old O or 0 for Operator (before 0 became the STD prefix).
I think there was a period, between the old letter distribution on the dial (with O = 0) and the current (formerly American) letter distribution (with O = 6), when dials had no letters, being purely numeric.
Many of the current exchange or area codes are derived from the old letter distribution on the dials: the first two digits (after the 01) are often derived from the first two letters of the main exchange, with the third digit merely as a 'tie break' to distinguish between exchanges with common first digits. E.g.:
WOrthing - 01903 (90 = WO on the old letter distribution)
CHichester - 01243 (24 = CH)
HOrsham - 01403 (40 = HO)
EPsom - 01372 (37 = EP)