On a telephone, why does ABC start on the number 2 and not 1?

Question

Uhhhh...my phone has Q and Z.

Answer 1

Roland's right...... he just got to the question faster than I did :-)
have you also noticed there's no Q or Z on the numbers either?

Answer 2

This is a Q & A in different format for your question. My phone keypad maps the letters differently than PhoneSpell does. The Bell Telephone standard mapping for digits to letters originally was: Bell Telephone number-to-letter mapping: 1=> 2=> ABC 3=> DEF 4=> GHI 5=> JKL 6=> MNO 7=> PRS 8=> TUV 9=> WXY 0=> Now this made a lot of sense to Bell Telephone (it is a very long story) but has some obvious problems for those of us trying to get the best mapping of phone numbers to words. The most obvious problem is that 1 and 0 both have no letters associated with them, so any number with 1 or 0 cannot be represented with letters. The other big problem is that the letters Q and Z do not have digits associated with them, so words with Q or Z cannot be represented with numbers. The good news is that these problems are easily solved by changing the mapping of digits to letters; the bad news is that there is no agreement on what the new mapping should be. Some keypads just add Q to 7 and Z to 9 and leave it at that. Some put Q and Z on 0. Some start all over and put ABC on 1 and end up with XYZ on 9. Still, the vast majority of keypads stick to the Bell original. PhoneSpell uses the slightly modified keypad with Q on 7 and Z on 9. PhoneSpell number-to-letter mapping: 1=> 2=> ABC 3=> DEF 4=> GHI 5=> JKL 6=> MNO 7=> PQRS 8=> TUV 9=> WXYZ 0=>

Answer 3

Because on almost every telephone system in the U.S., dialing a "1" as the first number means that a long distance telephone is about to follow. (This is changing, though)

This came about because of the way the old "Rotary" telehhones sent their dialing signals.

Some telephone systems use the "1" to represent the "Q" and "Z" because these letters didn't appear on older phones at all.

But some systems have added the "Q" and the "Z" under the "7" and the "9", leaving the "1" for "Special" characters, like punctuation for a text message.

Answer 4

Because in the past phone numbers were not allowed to start with the number 1. Back in the day of rotary phones, when the phone was taken off of the hook it sent a single click thru the line. So as not to "add" the number 1 as the first digit no numbers were allowed to start with one. Since the number 1 never started a number, the ABC's started with 2 so people could "spell" out their number

Answer 5

Well...it goes like this...

If you are spelling out a word as a phone number and that word started with A, B, or C , then your phone number would start with the number 1. Most phone numbers cannot be started with that number.

So if your word started with with A,B, or C and those letters are associated with the number 2 which can start a legitimate phone number, then you're o.k.

1 is only used to start a long distance or international call.

Answer 6

I blame the Los Angeles Dodgers on that one

Answer 7

It's George W. Bush's fault.

Answer 8

I think Roland E has the right idea.

Answer 9

I've never thought of that before.

Answer 10

ALL i KN0W, iS THAT 0N CELLYS, THE 0NE HAS THE .,!_-@$ ECT
BUT 0N LAND LiNES, iDK WHY...