Talk:211 (telephone number)

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Prince Edward Island has 2-1-1 ghosts? Telephone circuit vampires? Man, those 902ers... --Charlene.fic 03:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"In the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, for unknown reasons, when 2-1-1 is dialed it causes a busy signal to occur, and the dialer's telephone line will "go dead" for several minutes afterward."

No idea if this unsourced info is still current or useful. http://cnac.ca/data/ac902.htm has 211 reserved as an information number, not a test code, at the current time. It was common for telephone companies to set aside blocks of numbers, not just the standard 958-xxxx and 1-959-xxxx "plant test" exchanges (which are still reserved in most area codes) but often others such as 320-xxxx (Bell Canada, now reclaimed as a standard exchange) and 999-xxxx (various cities) for test purposes. Usually most of the block of 10000 numbers was wasted, except for a few which provided telephone installer tests such as ringback numbers (call it, hang up, your 'phone rings), automatic number announcement circuits (which tell you your own number, handy when installing multi-line 'phones), milliwatt test (just a continuous test tone) or loop around (a primitive conference call bridge). It was not uncommon for 211 or 311 to be used in this manner in areas where there were no community info or municipal service entities claiming the number. The test numbers varied from one locality to another, often changed and were pretty much always unpublished. Odds are, this number was once used for test purposes (hence the weird response) but it's likely that a test number in 2006 might not still be a test number in 2013 as numbers outside the standard 958/959 block are reclaimed for other purposes, like 2-1-1. K7L (talk) 18:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

HawkerTyphoon

HawkerTyphoon. You are erasing more up-to-date information. Do you have a reason?

211 for long distance operator

My feeling is that in the U.S., the original use of 211 was for placing long distance calls, and this remained as the primary use of 211 for several decades, thus should be the first listed use in 2-1-1#United_States (rather than the current mention of this as used by New York Telephone for an "automated credit request"). We ought to have some time range ... this Indiana Bell newspaper ad is from 1921, but I believe 211 continued to be used for long distance into the 1960s and perhaps later. Fabrickator (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)