The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
September 16, 2008
IS TEN DIGIT DIALING WORKING FOR YOU?
I have to admit I was wrong about the 250 thing.
You know, where every call you make on your phone now won't be completed unless you dial 250 before the rest of the numbers.
At first I thought it was going to be a real pain in the butt, but after hearing that silly automated message scolding me for not dialing all ten about a dozen times while trying to call someone next door or just down the street, I changed my habits pretty quickly.
I suppose if the automated voice reminding me I was not getting with the program wasn't so - ah, automated I'd probably have kept screwing up but since Telus was wise enough to use a voice that is so annoying to hear I suddenly reformed.
But I have to ask what good is dialing ten digits instead of seven?
I know it's because we're running out of phone numbers and I think there would have been a far easier way to deal with the situation years ago which would have prevented the need for 250 and 778.
Yep, I'm talking about the days when BC was just known in long distance circles as 604.
There should have been one and two digit 'city codes' added to the 604 and we wouldn't have needed the extra area codes, but who would have imagined back then that cell phones would end up taking away most of the available phone numbers?
I have had a toll free number to my residence for years. It was originally to allow one of us to call home from any phone, mostly pay phones, without having to either call collect, hunt for change or punch in fifteen digits of a calling card. It was a simple solution we still use.
But having to dial ten digits we didn't really see coming. At least not for calls in the same neighbourhood.
I miss the days when I lived in Penticton and you only had to dial five digits to call your neighbour. Dialing ten digits takes twice the time than it did then to make a call.
And still many of us haven't quite figured the program out.
I swear I have had more wrong numbers at home, work and even on my cell phone since everyone had to dial ten digits.
So I'm not convinced it's improved anything, yet it has proved to me it's not the best system - although it beats tin cans and string, party lines and radio phones.
Maybe the ten digit rule was meant as a deterrent to drunk dialing. It's got to be harder to remember ten digits when you're plastered than it was to remember seven.
Which may have something to do with all the wrong numbers I've been getting lately.
