The space in the STD codes

[pip5678]

Originally Posted by 198 kHz

Ah, thanks for clarification. As the original mention of 2211 was in pip5678's post about director areas, I was thinking of Scotland Yard's WHI 1212.
The Special Faults phone in my GSC was 22221, and frequently received calls for the city's cop shop, which was 22222.
One day someone rang asking for PC Collins, so the phone was handed to an engineer whose name was Phil Collins, and happened to have the middle initial C.
Cue much confusion.

Yes 198 kHz, 2211 was the special faults number in director area local exchanges I was familiar with. The GSC I worked at, in a director area, but served non-director areas too, ended in 1458. The special faults lines were used by other exchanges and external engineers to call in on ... and countless calls from wives and girfriends. Happy days!

[Richard_FM]

I did read about a court case where someone was caught chain dialling, but the GPO lost the case because the judge said they hadn't done enough to safeguard the system.

I can't quite remember the details.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by pip5678

Yes 198 kHz, 2211 was the special faults number in director area local exchanges I was familiar with. The GSC I worked at, in a director area, but served non-director areas too, ended in 1458. The special faults lines were used by other exchanges and external engineers to call in on ... and countless calls from wives and girfriends. Happy days!

Ah! Ashton under Lyne according to my BT list of all the Group and Trunk Centre Fault Reporting(Special Faults) numbers but none of the other Manchester Director Area numbers are 2211 - in fact there aren't any 2211 or similar numbers in any of the Director Areas. The only 'standard' numbers were the ones on UAXs - 290 and 2190 as they were 'built in' to the rack wiring.

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

Just a small point - in telecoms, the term 'satellite' refers to an exchange in an LNS (Linked Numbering Scheme) where the other exchanges didn't dial a code to reach a particular exchange in the LNS. In an LNS there was normally an exchange designated as the 'main' exchange where the interlinking was originally done but things developed over the years. Hence Etwall did not become a satellite until around 1990 when it went digital and became part of the Burton-on-Trent LNS The subscribers became 'Burton-on-Trent' numbers by prefixing then with '73' the old code previously from the 'Main' exchange in the group of exchanges. This was possible with the relevant exchange having four digit numbers.

The smaller exchanges off a main' exchange were 'dependent' exchanges - mainly UAXs but larger ones could be Non-Director exchanges as in the case of Etwall.

Right. So Etwall (6-figure numbers; the place name was kept with the change) would be correctly described as a satellite exchange of Burton-on-Trent, because you could call in at least one direction (both in this case) without a code; but when it was 4-figure, it and the Hoar Cross and Sudbury 3-figure exchanges would be correctly described as dependent exchanges of Burton-on-Trent, because you needed a code to call in both directions?

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

You'd be surprised how things changed over the years. 'Burton-on-Trent' was originally a Linked Numbering Scheme including Tutbury and Swadlincote exchanges.

A number of the exchanges in the Burton-on-Trent 0283 group had direct junctions to Derby Exchange - 0332 Group Switching Centre.

Interesting that the code to call Barton-Under-Needwood from Burton-on-Trent used to be 81; my memories of Etwall phone-related stuff only go back to the 1970s, by which time it was definitely 71.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by Richard_FM

I did read about a court case where someone was caught chain dialling, but the GPO lost the case because the judge said they hadn't done enough to safeguard the system.

I can't quite remember the details.

There were successful court cases over the years and the GPO did go to lengths to prevent the 'fraudulent use of the system'.

A Group Switching Centre would have a number of incoming routes which were restricted on what they could dial out to. For instance dialling from Chester (0244) to Wrexham was 93 which was barred from incoming STD calls. When it arrived in Wrexham, it wasn't possible to dial other GSCs by dialling 9X which were not within the Chester local call area such as 94 for Oswestry (0691) 30 odd miles from Chester or 96 for Whitchurch (0948) 20 plus miles from Chester. There was a way around sometimes by dialling a local code 81 from Wrexham to a dependent UAX such as say Ruabon UAX14, the dialling a 9 back to Wrexham GSC followed by the 93 for Oswestry. Ruabon of course was allowed access to Oswestry. But speech got fainter and fainter the further you went. Pre-STD, dependent UAXs also had 'call barring' on some of their outgoing junctions achieved by strapping in the junction relay set. Also both pre/after STD introduction, the outgoing 'local' access was limited by 'grading' on the incoming selectors.

To say the GPO didn't make the effort to prevent the fraud wasn't quite true - ill informed prosecuting lawyer! There certainly were successful cases, the big one in Bristol (?) where the engineer had 'modified' the exchange to get free calls by dialling a certain code which gave NU tone but you ignored that and just carried on dialling but meter pulses weren't sent back to the callers line meter. I believe it was held at the Old Bailey in London.

[198 kHz]

[QUOTE=pip5678;1246433][QUOTE=198 kHz;1245390]

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

Yes 198 kHz, 2211 was the special faults number in director area local exchanges I was familiar with. The GSC I worked at, in a director area, but served non-director areas too, ended in 1458. The special faults lines were used by other exchanges and external engineers to call in on ... and countless calls from wives and girfriends. Happy days!

Indeed they were.
Someone ^^ mentioned the futility of chain dialling when the transmission was so faint. It was, of course, but it was mainly "because you can".
A good wheeze from a payphone was to dial out to a UAX, then "0" for the operator. This meant the lamp on the operator's board was white, and not red as it would be for a payphone. Hence one could ask for any number and it would be ticketed to the payphone.
The vertical marking banks (VMBs) were eventually re-strapped to prevent this.

[mark_in_manc]

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

Whoops, cat knocked it off! Good excuse

Thanks for that. I live on the edge of 881 and 236, and now I can see why

[pip5678]

Originally Posted by Pellseinydd

Ah! Ashton under Lyne according to my BT list of all the Group and Trunk Centre Fault Reporting(Special Faults) numbers but none of the other Manchester Director Area numbers are 2211 - in fact there aren't any 2211 or similar numbers in any of the Director Areas. The only 'standard' numbers were the ones on UAXs - 290 and 2190 as they were 'built in' to the rack wiring.

Sorry to detract too much from the OP but yes it was indeed Manchester Ashton, however there were plenty of Manchester director local exchanges with special fault numbers of 2211.