It’s time to change my cell phone number. A year ago I migrated to a New Hampshire number and got 603-781-9445. Ever since, I’ve been getting wrong numbers, often to the tune of 3 or 4 daily.

The problem is that parts of northern Massachusetts use area code 781 and, yep, there’s a 944 exchange there, too. So anyone in New Hampshire with a landline dialing one of the thousand numbers that begin 781-944-5xxx will get me in the event they neglect to dial the numeral 1 first while placing their call.

Perhaps I spent too much time learning about the phone system in my youth (ok, well, I *know* I did), but still, it seems obvious to me that dialing a 1 to get outside the area code would be required. After all, landlines have no way of knowing that you’re finished dialing. As soon as the switch recognizes a path to a valid exchange, away it goes, regardless of how many more digits you insist on pressing.

The irony is that the proliferation of cell phones are to blame for my landline-related woes here. Cell phones, after all, *do* have a way of knowing when you’re finished dialing (you press “Send”) so folks have gotten used to NOT having to dial a 1 because of that.

Ugh. Time to change my phone number. Soon. The question is, since I have to go into the AT&T store to do that anyway, will that be the day I take the iPhone plunge?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 6:36 pm and is filed under gadgets, rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.