Alpha and numeric displays on telephone dials

poemboy | 17:50 Sun 18th Feb 2007 | Technology

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Why do both alpha and numeric displays appear on telephone dials

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heathfield

As telephone numbers got longer, it was thought that people would have difficulty remembering them. So the alpha was added to provide a mnemonic. At first this was restricted to only three letters. London's 'Whitehall 1212' could be dialled as 'WHI 1212', and so on.
Eventually, numbers got bigger still, and in fairly recent times the mnemonic capability has been extended. In the US it's common to find companies using their name or business type as the mnemonic, like 'Call toll-free 0800-AUTOHIRE'

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