My 666 Story – Mark of the Babies

I was amused to read this article in the Register recently about the big bucks generated in Qatar for an auction of the mobile phone number 666-6666 (over 2.5 million dollars!), and it seems only fitting that on 6/6/06 I share my own experiences with the prefix of the beast…

When I was first getting involved with telecom I worked for a good, upstanding Jesuit university in San Francisco in the early 90s. They were wisely replacing their ancient telephone system, one of the last large rotary dial key systems that was left in the city. Putting in a modern PBX meant new luxuries like direct incoming numbers for staff and faculty, and since the on-campus dorms were getting put on the new system too, a very large block of consecutive DID numbers were requested from the local phone company. There was only one existing prefix in the area with enough capacity, or so we were told. But I know I wasn’t the only one who wondered if someone at Pacific Bell must have been having a good laugh as the Catholic university got assigned numbers in the 666 prefix. [More...]