Oh I can tell you all about how London codes went. It was a mess.
When I was a kid, it was simple: all of Greater London was (01), followed by 7 digits. Then around the mid-90s they split it into inner and outer London, and it was 071 and 081. These were shit, and splitting London was stupid because it drove everyone nuts trying to remember whether someone was 071 or 081. They should have back then just gone to 8 digits, which was effectively what they'd done but just stupidly. Then only a couple of years later the national change to the 1 prefix (ie 0482 to 01482) came in, so it became 0171, 0181. Then they reunified London to 020 and 8 digits, with the new 8th digit being 7 or 8 accordingly, which was what they should have bloody done in the first place.
But why they needed a whole new code in the 2s rather than find a nice 01x code I don't know. Other than to make London feel special of course.
which makes it clear that _all_ of the changes that happened were part of one plan, which was come up with in the 80s. Seems altogether more organised than anything we might do nowadays (IPv6 being a prime example).
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andrewducker) wrote2010-12-18 11:01 am
no subject
I assume that back in ye olden days things were broken down more by area code, and bits inside London were assigned 01xx. Not sure how it works now.
no subject
When I was a kid, it was simple: all of Greater London was (01), followed by 7 digits.
Then around the mid-90s they split it into inner and outer London, and it was 071 and 081. These were shit, and splitting London was stupid because it drove everyone nuts trying to remember whether someone was 071 or 081. They should have back then just gone to 8 digits, which was effectively what they'd done but just stupidly.
Then only a couple of years later the national change to the 1 prefix (ie 0482 to 01482) came in, so it became 0171, 0181.
Then they reunified London to 020 and 8 digits, with the new 8th digit being 7 or 8 accordingly, which was what they should have bloody done in the first place.
But why they needed a whole new code in the 2s rather than find a nice 01x code I don't know. Other than to make London feel special of course.
no subject
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Number_Change
some areas were close to exhaustion. There's a nice history of all the chances here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United_Kingdom#Splitting_01_for_London_into_071_and_081
which makes it clear that _all_ of the changes that happened were part of one plan, which was come up with in the 80s. Seems altogether more organised than anything we might do nowadays (IPv6 being a prime example).
no subject
I still reckon it would have been easier to have London go 8 digit with the first change -- say to 071 for all of London and add the 7/8.