Arcing Electrical Junction Box Knocks WFEA & WZID Off The Air

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:16:30 -0500, "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com> said:

> On 16 Jul 2007 at 22:11, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>> And does anyone with a Boston Central landline care to ask the
>> operator for "Enterprise 1555" to see who (if anyone) answers it.

> "Enterprise" numbers were the way to have an inward toll-free number 
> before area code 800 numbers came along.  Are there any "Enterprise" 
> numbers left now?
 
Well, as of about five years ago, if you looked in the Boston business
White Pages, there was:

W M U R  T V  1819 Elm  Manchester N H
  From Boston Central exchange
  No charge to calling party
  Dial "0" and ask operator for . . . . . . . . . . Enterprise 1555

As I said, I haven't seen a Real Phone Book in a few years, so I have
no idea whether that listing is still there.

The west-coast equivalent of "Enterprise" was "Zenith" (which had the
advantage that it could not be accidentally dialed by customers as a
named exchange), and as of a similar time ago, you still saw maps of
Nevada and California advising that, in an emergency, one should dial
the operator and ask for "Zenith 1212".

Each BOC had its own set of "Enterprise"/"Zenith" number assignments,
but they were coordinated nationally by Mother so that an airline, for
example, could get the same number nationwide.  As noted in the WMUR
listing, they could be quite specific as to which callers could use
it, down to particular exchanges.  (Presumably they chose Boston
Central because that's where the media buyers were located back in the
1960s.)  Pat Townson has a brief summary at
<http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/history/enterprise-numbers>.

-GAWollman