Originally posted at http://www.318.com/TechJournal In the beginning, phone companies used names and not numbers to connect callers. As more and more people started using telephones that became too confusing to build a telephone infrastructure, as many people in a town might share the same name. Starting in 1879 the switch to assigning each customer a number began, typically using a four-digit code. All calls were still connected by a human operator. AT&T’s operating companies started installing dial telephones in the mid to late 1920s. Customers could now dial numbers rather than having an operator connect calls. Rather than use all digits to indicate a telephone number, AT&T began a hybrid…