How’s this for an interesting fact?
Even though San Jose is the 10th largest city in the country, you don’t need to dial an area code to call other people in the city. This is another thing that I find alien, because back home in Arlington, even before 10-digit local dialing became mandatory, we had to dial area codes to get friends and family in Maryland and DC.
I think that 10 digits even for the same area code became mandatory at least 10 years ago back home; here in San Jose, 408 can call 408 with just seven digits. It’s quaint, in a 1970s kind of way. For instance, I got a flyer in my door today for a pizza place, with just a seven-digit phone number. It looked like it belonged in the past.
But it’s strange, considering that this is Silicon Valley — wouldn’t you expect that they’d have run out of numbers, what with the cell phones, pagers, modems, faxes, and whatnot? I mean, that’s the reason they gave for making 10 digits mandatory back home…
Just the reverse for me, I spent most of my life in Alaska and Hawaii and you never dial an area code just the 7 digit number.
Now I’m in Seattle and the people across the street have a diffferent area code and its a long distance call. Its driving me crazy!