1984-01-02-sr-p14-17-digit-phone-number
January 02, 1984 Spokesman-Review Page 14:
Are you ready for a 17-digit phone number?
DAVE WORKMAN
Olympia bureau
OLYMPIA — The people of Bryant Pond, Maine, have my sympathies.
A couple of months ago, they were nudged into the 1980s—forced to give up their old-fashioned hand-crank telephones to join the outside world in computerized dialing.
Disciples of progress may say, “It’s about time! How did they get left out this long?”
But I say it’s too bad because the 1,000 or so souls in Bryant Pond lost more than antique telephones and regular elbow exercise.
They lost more than the distinction of being the only place where crank calls are legal.
They also lost the distinction of being one of the last refuges of man’s mastery of the world.
From now on, the people of Bryant Pond will have to face the fact numbers, not people, rule the earth.
You don’t think so? Well, compare the Bryant Pond of old with the sophisticated telecommunications technology of today.
The folks in Bryant Pond used to pick up the receiver, give the old crank a twist, and ask Elden Hathaway (owner of the local phone company) to ring somebody across town.
Hathaway, sitting at the switchboard in his living room, would exchange pleasantries and put the call through. If the person being called was busy, he could finish what he was doing, then get back to Elden and the original caller.
Now look at what I go through, using the new technology.
Because my bosses lease my office space and telephone service from state government, my business phones are on the government's money-saving statewide telephone network, called SCAN.
I like to save money, even if it’s not money in my own pocket, so I willingly use the SCAN system. But recently, Olympia’s wizards of technology added another money-saving feature, which added six to eight digits to every long-distance call I make — and I make several a day.
Now, depending on whether I use my push-button phone or my rotary-dial phone, I have to dial either 17 or 19 digits to make a long-distance call.
Recently, I decided to call Bryant Pond from my office. I felt pretty silly sitting here punching 17 di- gits to talk to somebody whose phone number used to be “six-one, ring two” (translation: No. 61 with two rings).
In case you've never seen a 17-digit phone number all strung out in black and white, here’s what it looks like: 8-123456-987-654-3210.
It makes your Social Security number or your driver’s license or your bank account number look like a piece of cake.
The first digit tells the state computer that somebody wants to make a long-distance call. The next six tell the computer it’s me.
The next three digits are the area code for the place I’m calling. And the last seven digits are the actual phone number.
Sometimes, by the time I pound out the first seven digits, I’ve forgotten who I was calling (or what my name is). So I have to start all over.
Mutter, mutter.
Other times, I breathlessly dial all 17 or 19 digits, inhale and wait expectantly for the phone to ring. And then a recorded voice says, “The SCAN system cannot complete your call as dialed.”
Mutter, mutter, mutter.
And frequently, I dial all 17 or 19 digits flawlessly, only to hear a recorded voice say, “Please wait. All SCAN lines are busy.”
Mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter.
These are problems the folks in Bryant Pond didn’t used to have to worry about.
John Freeman, principal of the elementary school there, remembers chatting with Elden Hathaway to place a call.
“It was kind of pleasant to get on the telephone and have someone to talk to,” said the New Jersey native.
And he added, “It was interesting getting the bills because they were handwritten, of course.”
Of course.
I remember the good old days, too, when I used to be able to talk to the operator in Washington. It was only a few months ago.
When away from home, I made long-distance phone calls by asking the operator to bill my home phone.
No more.
Now I have a 14-digit telephone credit card number for away-from-home personal calls, plus another 14-digit number for away-from-the-office business calls.
Even after I was assigned a credit card number, I didn’t lose immediate contact with the operator. When I made my long-distance call, an operator would come on the line and ask how I wanted to bill my call. And then I would give the operator my card number.
The old system was a few seconds slower, I suppose, but there were advantages to talking to an human being. If I botched the number, I could apologize and start over. If the operator botched it, he or she could apologize and ask me to start over. If I felt like it, I could ask what the weather was like in the operator’s neck of the woods.
Then one day a few months ago, I dialed a credit-card call, and instead of the operator coming on the line, I heard a beep.
I tried again. The same result.
I didn’t know it, but that beep was my signal to punch in my credit card number. No more operators.
Now I’m a trained seal. When I hear the beep, I punch in the numbers. All 14 of them.
And if I’ve been a good boy (or a good seal) and punched all 14 digits perfect y, an electronic voice tells me, “Thank you.” Kind of like throwing me a cold fish.
But if I delay for a split-second too long, or if I punch a number wrong, an electronic voice tells me to start over.
I sometimes tell the phony (no pun intended, of course) voice, “Go suck an egg.” Doing this makes me feel like a real tough-guy, but there’s probably a computer file on me somewhere. Someday, a robot will probably will get even by running me down while I’m crossing the street.
One night a few months ago, I couldn’t get the computer to put through a call on my business credit card.
Over and over again, I tried posing in my number, just to make sure I got it right. No dice. The electronic voice kept calling me a failure.
Unbeknownst to me, my card number had been changed. Now I had a new 14-digit number to memorize. And I couldn’t find out what it was until next day during business hours. That night, my business call would have to wait.
Mutter, mutter.
Sometimes, halfway through a 19-digit phone call, I have an impulse to slam the phone down, dial “O” and say something like: “Operator, get me Dick Moody in Spokane.”
Other times, I wonder if it would be easier just mailing a letter.
Ah, but the Postal Service has plans for me, too,
This year, the postal wizards will add four numbers to all our existing ZIP codes, making them nine digits long.
The Postal Service says the new numbers will be purely voluntary, that we can ignore them if we want. But I have to wonder: Who will get my mail if it’s not coded — and will it arrive during the recipient’s lifetime?
And how will I find out the nine-number ZIP codes of all the people I’ve been sending five-number ZIP-coded letters to?
Not to worry, says the Postal Service. There will be a toll-free “800” telephone information service. (Oh, goodie, another number for me to be at the mercy of.)
When I called Bryant Pond recently, the school principal deadpanned, “ZIP codes? We don’t have those yet.”
He had me going. But unfortunately, he was only kidding.
The little town in southwestern Maine has everything the rest of the country has in the way of modern communication. ZIP codes. And now computer phone dialing.
But the town didn’t give up its crank phones without a fight.
When the Oxford County Telephone Co. bought Elden Hathaway’s little phone company and announced plans to modernize it, a lot of locals formed the Don’t Yank the Crank Committee.
They fought the computers all the way to Maine’s public utilities commission before finally losing. The commission decided that the company had a right to install a more economical system.
I can agree with that. But still, I feel sorry for the townfolk of Bryant Pond. One of these days, they’ll probably be calling 17-digit phone numbers, too.
It’s reassuring, as Bryant Pond joins the rest of the world in meek subservience to the digital tyrants, to know there are still enclaves of modern-day heroes elsewhere, hanging onto some of their individuality.
One is Newhalem, Wash., on the west slope of the North Cascades, where people have four-digit phone numbers and you have to call the operator to reach them from the outside world.
But the hardiest heroes, in my book, are at White Pass, Wash. — a small ski resort on the Cascade Crest east of Mount Rainier. These mountain folks have single-digit phone numbers.
When I call the ski lodge at White Pass, I have to dial the operator and ask for White Pass No. 6.
Gosh, it feels good to do that.
It gives you the feeling that at White Pass, the people, not the numbers, are in charge.
