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Old 12th Jul 2014, 9:40 am   #1
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Default AFN Telephone Codes

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Originally Posted by keithinuk View Post
AFN, haven't a clue, something to do with 1966, I will have to read up some more.
AFN denotes "All Figures Numbers (Now)" The name of a campaign to publicise the introduction of All Figure Numbers in the mid 1960's. They'd run out of three letter director codes like MAYfair, BELgravia and WHItehall which made sense. There were some interesting ones like SKYport (Heathrow).
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Last edited by AC/HL; 13th Jul 2014 at 5:45 pm. Reason: Thread split
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Old 12th Jul 2014, 2:23 pm   #2
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

There were a few cunning attempts at keeping the Letters going as long as poss; my favourite was the conflict between HAMpstead and Hammersmith - they called Hammersmith RIVerside, clever.
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Old 12th Jul 2014, 3:37 pm   #3
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

It didn't quite die.
The numbers in the STD code sometimes correlate with names.
0532 (Leeds) translates as 0LE2, I think 0LE1 was Leicester.
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Old 12th Jul 2014, 4:21 pm   #4
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

At the risk of dragging this even further OT, I always loved the fact that when Oxford's 0092 (0OX2) had to be changed to eliminate double zeros at the start of a code, the replacement code of 0865 could be interpreted as 0UN5 for "University".
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Old 12th Jul 2014, 5:08 pm   #5
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

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Originally Posted by AC/HL
The numbers in the STD code sometimes correlate with names.
I think most of them did. Northampton, Norwich and Nottingham all had 060X codes for example.
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Old 13th Jul 2014, 12:16 pm   #6
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

I've just been here over at the THG. I didn't realise that Workington 0900 used to be written as 0-W-O-0, as in figure, letter, letter, figure. When I enquired on their newsgroup, it turns out that it was the normal way to express STD codes back in, and up to the 1960s.
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Old 13th Jul 2014, 4:07 pm   #7
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

I too found the THG discussion on this matter enlightening. Like you, I had never come across this way of representing exchange codes. I had only encountered exchange names (e.g. Workington) and all-numeric representations (0900), but never the hybrid form (0WO0). For completeness, perhaps I should say it was mentioned that the earlier version of the "hybrid" used alphabetic "O" rather than zero, so OWO0.

By the way, I think we have a ripe candidate here for splitting - an interesting discussion (starting from #7) that has rather derailed the original thread.
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Old 13th Jul 2014, 7:26 pm   #8
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Default Re: AFN Telephone Codes

Wasn't the publicity campaign for all-figure dialling ANN? I think this ran in the early seventies when the original three letter codes started to be withdrawn.
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Old 13th Jul 2014, 7:57 pm   #9
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Default Re: AFN Telephone Codes

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Wasn't the publicity campaign for all-figure dialling ANN?
I believe it was that or ANNE, Ann or Anne being a 1960's "dolly bird".
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Old 14th Jul 2014, 12:26 pm   #10
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Default Re: AFN Telephone Codes

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Originally Posted by WreckTangle View Post
Wasn't the publicity campaign for all-figure dialling ANN? I think this ran in the early seventies when the original three letter codes started to be withdrawn.
There is a bit of confusion in this thread! Several things happened at different times. Firstly in the 'old' days the STD codes outside Director areas were shown in the format 0LE2 for Leeds - see attached page from an STD codebook when there were only two pages of STD Codes!! In those days you couldn't dial everywhere - in fact I can't find an STD code book with 0WO0 until 1965 and then only in the Manchester book. Bear in mind that codes were allocated but often never came into use until after the introduction of All Figure Numbering. For instance 0352 never came into use until 1969 so was never shown in any format other than 0352.

Director areas had numeric codes 01, 021, 031, 041 etc Whilst they did have an Alphanumerics significance i.e 021 = 0B1=Birmingham, 031=0E1=Edinburgh - they were never shown that way. After the Director area STD code you dialled the first three letters of the exchange name plus the four digit number.

STD Codes were shown Alpha-Numerically until the middle of 1966 when STD code books started to show STD codes in their all numeric i.e. Leeds had become 0532 and Director areas like London started shown exchanges which had 'All Figure Numbering' (i.e.no exchange name to dial the first three letters of). See attached scan.

Then in 1968 the STD Codebooks announce that 'exchange names' in Director areas have gone and list the Numeric codes. See attached scan.

In fact a number of London exchanges had had their codes changes - WHItehall (i.e. 944 when dialled) had become 930 xxxx as part of 'sectorisation' .

So the term 'All Figure Numbering' came into being in 1966 when the Alph-Numeric STD codes were dropped. But letters were still shown for use in dialling exchanges in Director areas until 1968.

Exchange names were still shown with their appropriate codes in Director areas but eventually were dropped and the numerical codes effectively became part of the number.

Now even exchange names aren't shown in what is left of the BT telephone directories !

Join us on CNet - we still have exchange names!
Attached Thumbnails
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Name:	Workington-0WO0-1965.jpg
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ID:	95128  
Attached Files
File Type: pdf STDCodes1962.pdf (1.20 MB, 168 views)
File Type: pdf LondonNameChanges.pdf (1.12 MB, 108 views)
File Type: pdf 1966DirectorExchCodesMcr.pdf (566.8 KB, 108 views)
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Old 14th Jul 2014, 1:02 pm   #11
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC/HL View Post
It didn't quite die.
The numbers in the STD code sometimes correlate with names.
0532 (Leeds) translates as 0LE2, I think 0LE1 was Leicester.
No, 0531 was Ledbury- I used to live in Colwall which was 0531 xx off Ledbury.

Leicester used to be 0533.

Anorak alert:

http://strowger-net.telefoonmuseum.c..._earlystd.html
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Old 14th Jul 2014, 4:14 pm   #12
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Default Re: Telephone No. 150. I think it's vintage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC/HL View Post
It didn't quite die.
The numbers in the STD code sometimes correlate with names.
I understand there was a hierarchy to all this because of exchange equipment holding times and cost. The highest anticipated traffic demands started low on the dial with codes advancing as anticipated traffic decreased: 0WO2 for Wolverhampton; 0WO3 for Worthing; 0YO4 York; 0WO5 Worcester... 0WO8 Wolverton, then finally 0WO0 Workington.
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