A New Numbering Plan Intended to Develop a Telephone Network

Abstract

The 25th of October 1985, France numbering telephone plan was transformed from seventy telephone zones to two in just one night. The computerisation of France was highly promoted but the Telephone network was quickly running out of numbers. We analyse this overnight event as an infrastructural event and the biggest update in telephone history. It market a crucial step in the direction of network as a service, turning telephones into terminal while network fade in the background. By doing so, we insist on the historical specificity of what was a technocratic event, an innovation process with a highly closed script.