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The vast majority of the phone conversations I have with people are either on cell phones of via Skype. One of the consequences of this is the changing of the norms and expectations which accrued with telephone usage over the 20th century. For example, I don’t really know anyone’s number (does anyone know anyone’s “Skype number”?). Another dynamic I’ve noticed is the phenomenon of “sticky area codes.”
I’m going to be in Baltimore starting Wednesday and into Friday for ASHG. So I decided to email an old friend who I know from the Bay area, but who is actually a friend from my elementary school years back in the Northeast. When we both lived in the Bay we had atypical area codes. Mine was form the Northwest. His was from a New York City area code (where he went to medical school). It was absolutely no surprise to me that though he now lives in Baltimore he still has the same area code. I have other friends who have spent more than 10 years in the Bay area who retain their New York City area codes.
Here’s my hypothesis: the churn in area codes on cell phones over the past 15 years or so is basically modeled as neutral, with the exception of a few “prestige” area codes. As Dave Baltrus pointed out until recently area code portability wasn’t without friction. In particular you might have to get a new code (aligned with your residence) if you were switched carriers and such. But all that said, the prediction is rather straightforward, over time the proportion of prestige area codes should be increasing when you control for confounds. In regards to confounds, prestige area code residents were probably early adopters of cell phone technology. But now that the market has saturated and area code transition is relatively without friction my prediction is that there are is a notable bias in transitions away from non-prestige area codes, while prestige code holders are less likely to “mutate.”
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there’s always a relevant Seinfeld episode:
Elaine has to get a new number but wants to keep the same area code to preserve her “status.”
Yup, here in southern California people from certain parts of the Inland Empire are referred to by people in coastal areas as “909ers.” It’s not a compliment.
Prestige area codes are from the rotary dial era when it took longer to dial a high number, so area codes with lots of national headquarters and thus lots of inbound dialing got low numbers:
New York: 212
Chicago: 312
Los Angeles: 213
etc.
New York: 212
Chicago: 312
Los Angeles: 213
etc.Replies: @SFG, @Hare Krishna
It’s a fun little piece of Americana, because it tells you what the big cities were *in the fifties*. Cleveland’s 216, Detroit’s 313, and St. Louis’s 314 all hint at better times.
Nitpick: while you’re probably right about *churn* (I still have my old NY cellphone #), the *proportion* of prestige codes shouldn’t change, right? If anything it should go down after time as the later, non-prestige area codes are filled (the country’s population keeps increasing).
The Pennsylvania Hotel still has (212) PE6-5000 after all these years.
Keeping in mind that 0 was the worst number on a rotary phone, Wikipedia's history of Florida area codes is testament to how much has changed population-wise:
"When the first area code plan was introduced in 1947, the entire state was given the area code 305. In 1953, the area code 813 was introduced for the western coast of Florida, and 904 was introduced for northern Florida in 1965. In 1988, area code 407 was introduced for the Orlando area."
So Orlando was 21 when it was finally introduced four decades into the area code era, while St. Louis was 8.Replies: @SFG
I would think that hipsters would want to buck the trend and get a number with an obscure AC to better establish street cred: e.g., 907, 307, 406, 906 or 423.
You can add up the digits in area codes, with 0 counting as ten: Thus, Manhattan was 212 or 5, Chicago and Los Angeles were 6, Detroit 7, and St. Louis 8. Washington DC was a pretty bad 202 or 14 back then, because who needed to call Washington?
Keeping in mind that 0 was the worst number on a rotary phone, Wikipedia’s history of Florida area codes is testament to how much has changed population-wise:
“When the first area code plan was introduced in 1947, the entire state was given the area code 305. In 1953, the area code 813 was introduced for the western coast of Florida, and 904 was introduced for northern Florida in 1965. In 1988, area code 407 was introduced for the Orlando area.”
So Orlando was 21 when it was finally introduced four decades into the area code era, while St. Louis was 8.
When did rotary phones die out? I vaguely remember my parents having one.Replies: @Walter Sobchak
A similar situation obtains in Canada. The region of suburbs surrounding the City of Toronto is known as “the 905”, and its residents (about 4M of them) as “905ers”, after its area code (which split off from the main southern Ontario code some time back). It’s not necessarily pejorative though.
“The vast majority of the phone conversations I have with people are either on cell phones of via Skype.”
ALL of my phone conversations are either through Skype or a Smartphone. I have not had a Landline Phone in my home since 2011.
In 1st World countries the residential landline phone is going the way of the pager.
I live in rural NH (5 miles from town), and until maybe 5 years ago, cell service did not work at my home. It does now with Verizon but no other carriers and even Verizion is a bit spotty. DSL (or satellite) is the best we can do for the internet, and it has been going out for extended periods pretty regularly this summer; this makes skype a bit iffy: no cable where I live (though a mile away from me I think it is available).
I was talking to a woman recently who about lives about 15-20 miles away in small-town VT, and she told me that she has not had a landline for several years, but the reason for that is that in her town, the whole landline system would regularly go down in heavy rain.
So, as they say, YMMV.
For residential customers, yes. If you're a business and your only line is cell phone, people will be wary of you.Replies: @Jefferson
There was a webcomic (xkcd, maybe?) joking how everyones celphone basically preserves where they lived circa 2005, which in my observation holds pretty true, at least for people in my demographic.
“In 1st World countries the residential landline phone is going the way of the pager.”
And perhaps even more in 3rd World countries, where you don’t even have a legacy of old landline phones
This is true only in areas of 1st world countries with a 21st C 1st world infrastructure.
I live in rural NH (5 miles from town), and until maybe 5 years ago, cell service did not work at my home. It does now with Verizon but no other carriers and even Verizion is a bit spotty. DSL (or satellite) is the best we can do for the internet, and it has been going out for extended periods pretty regularly this summer; this makes skype a bit iffy: no cable where I live (though a mile away from me I think it is available).
I was talking to a woman recently who about lives about 15-20 miles away in small-town VT, and she told me that she has not had a landline for several years, but the reason for that is that in her town, the whole landline system would regularly go down in heavy rain.
So, as they say, YMMV.
“In 1st World countries the residential landline phone is going the way of the pager.”
For residential customers, yes. If you’re a business and your only line is cell phone, people will be wary of you.
They will think you are a drug dealer?
For residential customers, yes. If you're a business and your only line is cell phone, people will be wary of you.Replies: @Jefferson
“For residential customers, yes. If you’re a business and your only line is cell phone, people will be wary of you.”
They will think you are a drug dealer?
Keeping in mind that 0 was the worst number on a rotary phone, Wikipedia's history of Florida area codes is testament to how much has changed population-wise:
"When the first area code plan was introduced in 1947, the entire state was given the area code 305. In 1953, the area code 813 was introduced for the western coast of Florida, and 904 was introduced for northern Florida in 1965. In 1988, area code 407 was introduced for the Orlando area."
So Orlando was 21 when it was finally introduced four decades into the area code era, while St. Louis was 8.Replies: @SFG
I thought about that, but wasn’t 202 supposed to be a partner prestige code to Manhattan’s 212? It is true that 0 is all the way at the end.
When did rotary phones die out? I vaguely remember my parents having one.
When my daughter started college in 2003, I got her a cell phone in the area code of the school, so that her friends who did not have cell phones could call her without long distance surcharges. When her brother started in 2007, he just kept the phone he had been using at home as land lines were by then irrelevant.
There is one little bit of history about as to why NYers might be a bit more into their area code that people in other places.
Back in the day, 212 was the area code for all the boroughs of NY. Then they started up the 718 area code that was for Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, with the Bronx following a couple of years later IIRC. Back then there was a saying that some one was ‘B&T’ which was short for ‘Bridge and Tunnel crowd’, as for people one saw in a fashionable bar or club in Manhattan, and one did not want to be B&T. One of the weirdest things for a NYer of a certain age, like me, is that Brooklyn is now fashionable in that people from somewhere else view it as aspirational destination, it rams home the point about the impermanence of things in the world, how on earth could something as weird as Brooklyn becoming cool happen. Nothing said B&T more loudly than a 718 phone number, a 718 number really would kill one’s chances with a lot of women in bars right then and there, so the 212 phone number thing became locally important to NYers in a cultural sort of way.
Lots of stuff happened to phone numbers since then, first they added 917 for cell phones, 646 and the like. 212 still matters for financial business, real finance firms have a 212 area code, people from Silicon Valley do not want to talk to bucket shops from somewhere in NYC that isn’t Manhattan. I suppose all this will eventually go away, but I think NYers and ex NYers being a bit more into their phone numbers is from that.
I generally never double check via google things that I distinctly remember being true, because I am pretty good at remembering correctly, but since I had a brain fart a few of Z’s posts ago about the Moslem conquest of North Africa I decided to double check if I was right about the Bronx not initially being 718. I was right, so I suppose I will go back to my old habit of commenting without a net, but the article that came up on google was pretty interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/16/nyregion/718-area-code-for-brooklyn-queens-and-staten-island-gains-approval.html
In the article, which is from 1984, it said that some people said that the 718 area code would stigmatize people who had it and though that sounds like BS, the people who thought that were actually right.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/16/nyregion/718-area-code-for-brooklyn-queens-and-staten-island-gains-approval.html
In the article, which is from 1984, it said that some people said that the 718 area code would stigmatize people who had it and though that sounds like BS, the people who thought that were actually right.Replies: @SFG
Yup. When Manhattan got over 10 million #s and they were going to have to split the 212 area code, they were initially going to have to do a geographic split, but so many Manhattanites complained they decided to give the 646 area code to new numbers only. So a 212 actually does mean you’ve been in the area for a while. I’d imagine there are businesses where it actually matters.
I wonder if the Wolf of Wall Street guy out on Long Island had some scam where he got a 212 phone number for his “Stratton Oakmont” bucket shop.
Back in 2000, I suggested to my niece who was moving to Los Angeles from the Bay Area to work in television that the San Fernando Valley was less expensive and home to most of the TV studios, but she refused categorically to have an 818 area code.
When did rotary phones die out? I vaguely remember my parents having one.Replies: @Walter Sobchak
I hung to my rotary dial phones well into the 80s, because the old AT&T phone companies charged extra for non-rotary dial phones (which they called “touch tone”). I only abandoned them because my wife threw a fit about the phones.
When my daughter started college in 2003, I got her a cell phone in the area code of the school, so that her friends who did not have cell phones could call her without long distance surcharges. When her brother started in 2007, he just kept the phone he had been using at home as land lines were by then irrelevant.
New York: 212
Chicago: 312
Los Angeles: 213
etc.Replies: @SFG, @Hare Krishna
So Dallas (214) was more prestigious in the ’50s than San Francisco (415)? I would’ve thought the opposite
You can buy them legally now. You don’t even have to be in New York.
I thought it was weird the first time someone told me they were impressed that I had a 310 area code. Not all of that exchange area is prestigious neighborhoods, I could have been living in Lawndale for all they knew. Reminds me of Paul Fussell’s book “Class” where an English nobleman had a middle-class guest thrown out of a party for remarking what a fine set of antique dining chairs he had. What cheek! Fellow praised my chairs!!