Blackberry users are totally stuffed by this, as the keyboard is qwerty with the numbers as 'alt' functions. I hope this system never becomes popular in the UK !!

To throw in a bit of history, did you know these same numbers (2=A,B,C, 3=D,E,F etc) were responsible for the original dialing codes in the UK? So Manchester was 061 (6=M), Liverpool 051 (5=L) Glasgow 041, Edinburgh 031, Birmingham 021 ? And then local codes were also derived from the letters spelling the area, wherever possible, so WYThenshawe in Manchester was 061 998 (WYT) Clever eh?

Obviously the introduction of a 1 to nearly every dialing code has altered this somewhat, but in the majority of cases if you take the first two or three letters of your local area you can see how your own dialing code was derived.

And that concludes today's lecture on Telecommunications History. Tomorrow I could write about The Demise of Analogue TV if anyone is interested!!