In this article we're going to discuss just some of the many problems faced when issuing telephone numbers to the general public.
Anyone who said that you can't ever have too much of a good thing obviously never had to issue telephone numbers to an exploding population.
Back in the good old days when the telephone was first invented there weren't that many people who even had one. For that matter, there weren't that many people period. Take New York City, which is one of the largest cities in the world today. The whole population of the United States in the 1880 census was a little over 50 million. The population of JUST New York City alone today stands at over 8 million people. And that's just ONE city.
As for the number of people who had phones back then, well it was a very small percentage to say the least. Less than 10% of the people in the United States had phones. Today, almost everybody has a phone unless they live in a cave. The truth is, today you just can't live without a phone. And for each person who has a phone that's one more phone number that has to be given out.
With the current phone system of 10 numbers, 3 for the area code and 7 for the number itself, that gives us a finite number of phone numbers that can be issued. Granted, mathematically we shouldn't run out of numbers if you just apply pure mathematics. But then you have to take into account that certain numbers can't be used. For example, because of information and emergency service numbers in the United States (411 and 911) no area codes can begin with those numbers and no phone exchanges can begin with those numbers.
But restricted numbers are not the main problem we are faced with issuing phone numbers to customers. The problems only begin there.
Aside from the fact that more people have phones today and there are more people in the world to have phones, people today as a family have more phone numbers.
For example, as recently even as the 1970s, a family of 4 had one phone number. Oh they may have had more than one phone in the house, such as one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen, but they both shared the same number. Today, a family of 4 probably has 5 or even 6 different phone numbers in their home. Aside from the main home number, in most families, each member of the family has a cell phone with each one having a different number. Aside from that, since many people do work from their homes today, they also have either a fax number of a separate line installed for an Internet connection.
So the number of phones per household has increased by a factor of 5 or 6. As a result issuing numbers has become a nightmare. States are having to break up into more area code segments. For example, in the 1960s, New Jersey had just 2 area codes, 201 and 609. Today we now have 201, 908, 732, 976 and 609. And still, New Jersey is running out of numbers. And this problem is happening all over.
And it will only get worse. With the increasing number of ways to use a phone (throw aways) the number of phone numbers that will be needed will only continue to increase.
The 13 digit phone number may be closer to reality than you think.
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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Telephones
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