Any Idea's?

[liverpoolfoo]

High all you clever people out there in AB land.... Anybody know why land line phones have letters as well as numbers on them? & why does ABC start under number 2 on both landlines & mobiles? .......

[dot.haukes]

They have always had that, I remember the actual round dial ones (Boo probably remembers the wind up ones) and they had the letters too, it was to identify certain things.
1 is needed for the characters like ! and / and @ etc etc etc.

[caththecrazy]

I saw the dial ones in a museum Dot!!! I was with my nanny and she said we didn't even have a phone til I married your grandad and he needed it for work.

[craft1948]

I think years ago the number actually related to the letters of the main exchange. Like Scarborough was 723 Hull was 482 ......but the exchange numbers have changed a lot so to me doens't make sense.....though it still may equate to telecoms designated exchange codes.

[Postdog]

Blimey, you must be young!!

In the old days, fewer telephones existed, and exchanges were by locality name (ie, mine - Loughton, or LOU. The numbers that came in generally followed the letters (mine's 508) but where the phone numbers exceeded possibilities, it became necessary to utilise other number codes (as in kine again, 502)

As for starting on the number 2, no idea.

[liverpoolfoo]

Dot thanks for your answer i know they have always had them. But for what purpose?

[liverpoolfoo]

Postdog not young just NUMB lol