Geauga Record

MONTVILLE GETS NEW PHONE BOOKS

Special supplemental telephone directories containing the Two-Five numbers are being mailed to customers of The Thompson Telephone Company in Thompson and Montville in preparation for the start of the new system at 3:01 a.m. Sunday, May 18. The present October, 1957 directory is to be retained for use in making calls to numbers other than those in the two exchanges.

Everything is ready to place the new system in service, according to Baxter H. Case, vice president and general manager of The Chardon Telephone Company as a subsidiary. In the two offices all telephones were checked to make sure that all had the proper type of dial and the new numbers were placed on the plate under the present ones.

As customers in the two exchanges have been dialing their calls for several years, Mr. Case does not anticipate any difficulty in shifting to the new system. He points out that Two-Five dialing is only a little different from the present method in that the numbers are now made up of an exchange name and five figures instead of just four figures, and in making a call the first two letters of the exchange name, which always are capitalized, must be dialed on every call. For example, in calling a Thompson number, which has the prefix CYpress 8, the letter "C" and the letter "Y" must be dialed and then the five figures.

For Montville, which has the prefix YOrktown 8, the letter "Y" and the letter "O" must be dialed and then the five figures. The small circled number on the plate is to be ignored in making calls until Direct Distance Dialing starts.

Mr. Case stresses the importance of fixing in mind the location of the letters and figures on the dial so as not to confuse the letter "I" with the figure "1" (one) or the letter "O" with the figure "0" (zero). "On some dials," he said, "you will see the letters in black and the figures in red through the openings in the dial wheel, while on others the letters and figures will be on a plate outside the wheel. On this type dial the figures are always directly opposite the openings in the wheel with the letters on the outer rim."

When the Two-Five system is placed in service, Thompson and Montville will be tied into the nation-wide uniform numbering plan set up to speed long distance calls under Direct Distance Dialing, generally referred to as DDD. Under DDD, a customer, from his own telephone, will be able eventually to dial numbers in cities all over the continental United States. To bring this fast service to the Thompson Company territory will require the installation of two exchanges. It is now being engineered and Mr. Case says the service may be expected within the near future.