{"id":42375,"date":"2015-12-03T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.pro\/?p=42375"},"modified":"2015-12-08T13:14:03","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T18:14:03","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-to-area-codes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/2015\/uncommon-knowledge-is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-to-area-codes\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: Is There Any Rhyme or Reason to Area Codes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/talk-dock?source=blog_uk120315\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-42386 size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/uk_151203.jpg\" alt=\"Talk Dock | UncommonGoods\" width=\"620\" height=\"249\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nMost people know that ZIP codes are roughly geographic, but area codes seem a bit more random. Why is New York 212 while Los Angeles is 213? Turns out, it can all be traced back to the rotary phone.<\/p>\n<p>Before 1951, all long distance phone calls required an operator\u2019s assistance. Once operators were cut out of the equation, the phone system\u2019s infrastructure was in need of an organized routing system. Since <a title=\"When Dials Were Round and Clicks Were Plentiful - New York Times\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1999\/10\/07\/technology\/when-dials-were-round-and-clicks-were-plentiful.html\" target=\"_blank\">everyone used rotary phones<\/a>, area codes were given out with dialing speed in mind. The bigger the city, the less time you have to wait for the numbers to loop around. New York\u2019s 212 took only 5 <a title=\"All about the different area codes - The Final Wager\" href=\"http:\/\/thefinalwager.co\/2015\/07\/17\/north-american-numbering-plan-area-codes\/\" target=\"_blank\">clicks<\/a> to register while Nova Scotia\u2019s 902 took a whole 21.<\/p>\n<p>Until recently, all area codes had either a 1 or a 0 in the middle number so local calls could still be dialed without the area code. (The central computer was programmed to know that a second digit of 0 or 1 meant an area code, so it would wait to receive all ten digits before making the call.) However, the addition of cell phones and <a title=\"North American Numbering Plan: Numbering System - Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/North_American_Numbering_Plan#Numbering_system\" target=\"_blank\">countless new phone number<\/a>s made this an impossible standard to keep up.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Talk Dock | UncommonGoods\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/product\/talk-dock?source=blog_uk120315\" target=\"_blank\">Talk Dock<\/a> | $36.00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is New York 212 while Los Angeles is 213?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":42391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[813],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42375"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42608,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42375\/revisions\/42608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}