What is the number called that comes after the area code in a phone number?

Answer 1

officially it's called the exchange. but most people call it the prefix.

Answer 2

Lance and Joey are correct: Award them 10 points for best answer. In the 1920's, my mother was a telephone operator in Chicago. Those were the days when Elliot Ness would pick up the phone, the operator would say, "Number, plee-ahz!" and Elliot Ness would bark, "Michigan 978!" My mother worked in the Superior exchange, named after one of the great lakes. If she had to get the call to some one in the Michigan exchange, she plugged in to a central operator. Naturally, every operator all over Chicago was trying to reach a central operator, they were all on the same line at the same time, so the result was chaos. My mother told me that she would say over and over again: "Supe! Supe! Supe!" Finally, the central operator would become exasperated and say, "Superior! Give your number!" My mother would reply "Michigan 978!" And the call would go through.

Answer 3

It used to be called the "exchange" number, which identified the particular switchboard in the central office that contained your particular telephone line. Each exchange switchboard handled 10,000 telephone lines: 0000 to 9999. In early days, exchanges had names to make them easier to remember, like YEllowstone 2 or MAin 1. That's why there are letters associated with the numbers on your telephone.

Eventually the letters were discarded, and there was much unhappiness about "ANC" or 'all-number calling.' We got used to it quickly enough, it seems.

Answer 4

The next three numbers are a prefix.

Answer 5

The prefix number, I believe.

Answer 6

Exchange.

Answer 7

your phone number

Answer 8

prefix