Certain countries set aside phone numbers for fictional use.
For the UK, OFCOM (UK regulator) have information here. See http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/num_drama
Only 555-0100 to 555-0199 are now reserved, though other 555 numbers are used in some films and tv shows. Reference: section 4.6 of http://www.atis.org/inc/docs/finaldocs/555-NXX-Assignment-Gu...
Australia has a series of set numbers reserved: http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_2330
If anybody has information for other countries, then please supply them and I can update this blog
Thanks
Karen
Comments
Antidisun-gobbledegook-ification
Thanks, Karen.
Here's the paragraph relevant to us:
That was buried in some of the most opaque bureaucratic technobabble I've ever seen!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP)
Actually extends to Canada and a bunch of other countries, mostly in and around the Carribbean:
* Anguilla
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Bermuda
* British Virgin Islands
* Canada
* Cayman Islands
* Dominica
* Dominican Republic
* Grenada
* Jamaica
* Montserrat
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* Saint Lucia
* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Turks and Caicos Islands
* United States, including Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa
In a past life, I was a telephone network engineer...
Of course, they still had magneto phones with ringing cranks on them back then.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Hello, Central?...
P.S. At one time, any 555 number in any area code was "fictional," so old films, radio programmes, and novels may use them, but many old examples didn't care whether they were working numbers or not, such as the famous jazz tune by Glenn Miller, Pennsylvania 6-5000, which was the number of the Pennsylvania Hotel. It still works, as far as I know. A similar "real" number in San Francisco, was used for Candy Matson, a Private Eye from the late 40's and 50's, was Yukon 2-8208.
Alphanumeric telephone numbering plans were, until recently, a unique feature of the North American Numbering Plan, and the reason those little letters exist on the number keys, since co-opted for "texting."
P.P.S. 555-1212 was at one time the "official" access to some directory assistance services supplied by the telephone company, but *every* 555 number was reserved for directory assistance, which meant that there were a lot of "spare" numbers. Time services had a similar dedicated prefix (actually called an "exchange" for historical reasons) -- actually two* in California -- and all the numbers with those prefixes accessed the same time signal, "At the tone, the time will be five, forty-seven, and twenty seconds. Beep." The woman who read those individual words most recently (put together by a complex tape drum playback system) was a woman named (something) Grey. It will come to me eventually. People used to post notes on walls, "For a good time, call Alice (or any other woman's name) 767-1212 (or whatever the local time prefix was with a few random numbers added.)" as a joke, presumably on men.
It's been pointed out to me that many women (and a few men) have supplied time anouncements, including Jane Barbe, John Doyle, Pat Fleet or Joanne Daniels. If one is within the reach of WWV or WWVH (Hawai'i) and have a shortwave receiver, you can still hear John Doyle and Jane Barbe reading the US National Bureau of Standards time announcement, male and female voices being used to distinguish the source of the signal, the male voice from Fort Collins, Colorado, and the female voice from Kekaha, on the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. For increased accuracy, one can (with difficulty) estimate the propagation time of the radio signals and know when the actual "tick" occurred, but few actually do this anymore, since the various satellite navigation systems floating around in space do a much better, and far more accurate, job these days, or you can receive the signals over the Internet.
* 853-1212 and 767-8900 were "official" numbers in California, but other states used other prefixes.
WWVH's time signal can also be accessed by calling +1-808-335-4363, if you'd like to hear Jane Barbe speak from beyond the grave. She died in 2003. For long time, she was *the* voice of the Bell System time services, but also did the recordings for Australia (using an Australian accent) and other countries, including Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia.
WWV's time signal can also be accessed by telephone by calling +1-303-499-7111, if you'd like to hear Mr Doyle.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Re: The North American Numbering Plan (NANP)
Hello Puddintane,
I can't let that statement pass without comment. "Alphanumeric telephone numbering plans" were not unique to the North American Numbering Plan! ;)
In 1912, when the 'Director System' was added to automatic telephone exchanges in the UK (long before the NANP was introduced into the USA in 1951!), an alphanumeric numbering system was used, where the first three digits corresponded to the exchange name, for example, GROsvenor, in London. See this Wiki article, which gives more information about the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_telephone_system
Regards,
Dave.
You're absolutely right...
...but the US alpha plan prevailed. The USA had a huge influence on the development of the world telephone system, which is why the USA and Canada share country code "1." Russia managed "7," the only other single digit country code as I recall. All the country codes were originaly arranged so that one could tell how long they were going to be by looking at the first digit, so country codes went up to four digits, but these days computers can figure these things out rather more cleverly, and there are only a very few four digit country codes left.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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The telephone is a good way to
talk to people without having
to offer them a drink.
--- Fran Lebowitz
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Re: You're absolutely right...
I know! ;) Thanks for the acknowledgement.
I don't doubt that for a moment! However, to the best of my knowledge, I believe the UK was the first to use an alphanumeric numbering system.
Regards,
Dave.
WHItehall 1212
IIRC was the number for Scotland Yard. I can vaguely remember hearing the number given out on the BBC as the number to contact with any information about a crime. So, in the UK, 1212 was the number for a totally different concept of 'time' :)
Puddin', if you were working on telephone systems with magneto ringers either you're very old or they lasted a long time in the USA. We had a phone like that when I was a boy and we were amongst the last. We jumped straight from that to an automatic exchange skipping over the CB system (central battery?) in the early 50s, I think. I worked for Post Office (telephones) for a while when I was 16/17 (1956/7) but I never got beyond digging holes and climbing telegraph poles one cold, wet Winter; all the installations were automatic by then and nearly all were shared (party) lines. Very few people had telephones in the UK although we did, for the business; I rarely used one and it took me years to get over the nerves and I still delay making calls as long as possible.
Geoff
Back of Beyond.
Living remote from the world.... by popular demand .... I have a telephone number that identifies the village in which I live. Locals here still answer their 'phone by giving the name of the village followed by three digits - e.g. Puddleby-on-the-Marsh 123. I feel this, n a small way, cocks a snoot at progress and has the added benefit that, as the surrounding villages work on the same system, one has only three numbers to recall when arranging to meet someone for a drink etc.
As mobile phones don't work here either one feels quite protected from the worst excesses of progress.
Hugs,
Magneto telephones...
I'm 62, but I don't have to be even *that* old. They were used in the military*, and other ad hoc telephone installations, and the one I worked on had been installed in a theatre for communicating to the back of the house (where some of the lighting controls lived) from the stage manager's desk at the side of the stage.
My grandparents had a "cabin" in the California desert used as a weekend getaway which was connected to a local plugboard "party" exchange using magneto phones as well. One used different hand-crafted ringing signals, "one long, two short," and so on, to access those who shared your circuit so as not to annoy the operator, who ran a local store. This system was phased out in the early Sixties, as I recall (I wasn't a constant visitor), so rumours of the early demise of these systems were greatly exaggerated.
As a sidenote on the memorability of alphanumeric exchanges and individual numbers, I can still bring their "town" number easily to mind, LIberty 8-1820. I *hated* all-numeric exchanges when they first came out, and time has not withered, nor custom staled, my infinite contempt for them. They should have been optional, although I do confess that the disappearance of the rotary dial, which allowed one to "aim" for the next number whilst the previous was clicking out its stepping signal, has made them slightly less handy to use.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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* Known as "Field Telephones," they were used through Viet Nam by the military and are still used by people who don't want to use radios for any reason. They're far more clandestine.
http://www.olive-drab.com/od_electronics_ee8.php
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Re: WHItehall 1212
Hello Geoff,
Yes, that's quite correct, also, "'New' Scotland Yard"! In fact, I believe the number '1212' was used nationally for contacting the local police force.
LOL Yes, it certainly was!
When automated time announcements were introduced in the UK on 24 July, 1936, initially only in London, all that was necessary to access it was to dial TIM (843), a shortened version of the word 'time'! Although 'officially' named "The Speaking Clock", TIM became the popular name for the service!
The announcement was, "At the third stroke, the time will be 'hour', 'minute' and 'tens of' seconds", 'stroke' in this context meaning a short 1000Hz 'pip' tone.
For example, "At the third stroke, the time will be one twenty and thirty seconds". For time exactly on the minute or hour, the message would have been, for example, "At the third stroke, the time will be twelve twenty precisely" or "At the third stroke, the time will be twelve o'clock precisely."
The announcements were optically recorded on rotating, circular glass discs, using technology similar to that employed for film soundtracks.
The number now used in the UK for time announcements is 123.
Regards
Dave.
Radio & TV Call Letters
And for anybody in the U.S. who is writing a story that uses a fictional TV or radio station, you can check your chosen call letters here:
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/General_Menu_Reports/callsign.cfm
Broadcasters in the U.S. have three and four letter callsigns that start with K or W. Generally K is used west of the Mississippi and W is used east of the Mississippi, but there are exceptions.
Karen J.
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Those of you outside the US may not recognize WKRP ...
For a while, here in the US there was a TV sitcom 'WKRP in Cincinnati' about the crew of a struggling radio station in, of course, Cincinnati, Ohio, that had those call letters.
There actually was a station in Atlanta, Georgia using those call letters starting in 1979, though
"... at first, the FCC denied the call letters to the new station, stating that MTM had a 'hold' on the callsign. When the station's lawyer pointed out to the FCC, "MTM is neither a licensee, nor a permittee. Therefore, MTM has no legal basis to reserve the WKRP callsign", they allowed the assignment. ... The call letters WKRP (supposedly a pun on the word "crap") were assigned to a low-power TV station in Washington, DC until 2005; it is now WDDN-LP. Currently, they are assigned to a low-power TV station (WKRP-LP) in Alexandria, Tennessee ... In November 2008, Cincinnati low-power television station WBQC-CA changed its branding to "WKRP-TV",[11] and the station's owner, Block Broadcasting, has registered "WKRP" and "WKRP Cincinnati" as trademarks.[12][13] It is of no relation to the Alexandria, Tennessee station. ( Wikipedia )
But note that in this case:
nobody used the call letters until after they were used in fiction;
until this year the entire series name was not used;
and that even then, it is not an AM station in Cincinnati, as was the station in the series, and they carefully did not use 'in', in their branding. ( This was stated in an item I found on the internet when the name change took place. I can't credit it, because I don;t have the link.
I'm not sure just what relevance this has to the discussion, but I thought some people might be interested in this tidbit.
It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,
David Weber – In Fury Born
Holly
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.
Holly
Part of the reason
WKRP is certainly one example that most everybody "of a certain age" would be familiar with (in the U.S.); but there have been several less well-publicized incidents involving people using the call letters of actual broadcast entities in a manner the owners did not condone.
Some people may have heard of the incident involving the amateur radio operator and the QVC Shopping Channel. The amateur radio operator had an FCC-issued call-sign that ended in "QVC" and set up a webpage that included the call-sign in the name. He received a 'cease and desist' letter from QVC's attorneys. Only after he showed that the call-sign was assigned to him in sequential order by the FCC (a Federal agency) did they agree to drop actions against him.
There have been several other incidents involving the use of a legitimate broadcast entity's call letters that didn't end quite as pleasantly, so it might be worth a person's time to check and make sure there isn't anybody using the call letters of an actual station. The call letters do have commercial value that may be carefully guarded by the owners, and they generally have deeper pockets than we do.
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
>> it might be worth a person's time to check...
I think that's a really good idea for *all* corporate "identity" terms or unique slogans, even some personal names. If you have a burning need to call your "fictional" magic potion "cocacola," you should take two aspirin and go to bed, hopefully to rise in a state of sincere repentance and wisdom. The Internet is a fairly good tool for discovering competing uses of your "inventions," and should be used unless your use of a name is totally inoccuous. You might say that the heroine "drives a Toyota," but saying that "Toyota made the Death Ray that leveled Paris" is a horse of a different colour.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Nor do they trust their tongue alone,
but speak a language of their own;
can read a nod, a shrug, a look,
far better than a printed book;
convey a libel in a frown,
and wink a reputation down.
--- Jonathan Swift, The Journal of a Modern Lady
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style