Why are there letters on the telephone and when did it start?

Question

Why are there letters on the telephone and when did it start?

Answer 1

The letters were added prior to the 20th century because of the increasing number of people with a phone, private numbers etc, so they put the numbers on the number pads to make it easier to remember phone numbers, like we use : 456: The : Hall that's easier to remember

than 456 : 843 : 4255

Answer 2

The first three numbers of the telephone number are the exchange and indicate (or used to when there weren't so many phones and you couldn't take your home number with you when you moved) what area the phone number was located in -- such as BR (27) for Broadway, or KL (55) for Klondike. In the old movies when they placed telephone calls, they would say "Klondike 5" and the rest of the telephone number, remember? It probably helped the telephone operators routing the calls. I don't know when it began.

Answer 3

Nancy A. is exactly correct with the numbers starting with letters, they started with the first rotary dial phones!

Answer 4

Way back when, phone numbers used to have letters in them, not sure when it started tho.

Answer 5

for 1-800 or 1-900 number. example, 1-800-home-dep