Area Code 408 - Los Gatos

Los Gatos

Los Gatos is one of three cities in Santa Clara County that was not served by the Bell System. Gilroy and Morgan Hill were also outside the Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) service area. These communities were served by what was referred to, in “Bell System circles”, as “independent” telephone companies.

According to historian Willys I. Peck, the Los Gatos Telephone Company was the first company to offer telephone service in town. Later, the Western California Telephone Company provided service to Los Gatos and to Novato, Morgan Hill, and Kenwood. In the 1970s, the utility was acquired by General Telephone and Electronics, which changed its name to GTE, and merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 to become Verizon Communications. Verizon still serves these four areas.

Los Gatos is served by three central offices. Historically, these were referred to as the Six Office, the Four Office, and the Mountain Office. The first two of these designations come from the historic exchange names when the town converted from manual to dial service. Phone numbers in these two offices were ELgato-6 and ELgato-4 numbers, respectively (dialed as ELx-xxxx.) As the area migrated to seven-digit numbers, these changed to 356- and 354-numbers. In their earlier life, all numbers for the segment of town served by each office had the respective prefix or office code related to that office.

Previously, billing information for calls placed from Los Gatos was recorded on magnetic tape, and sent to a centralized processing center in Southern California. As the tapes were processed, the charges found their way to subscribers' bills.

Both the Four Office and the Six Office served suburban areas in the town of Los Gatos. In the 1970s, both offices operated Automatic Electric Company No. 1EAX switches. Local community folklore describes the public perception of poor service in the area at that time, and suggest the switches would fail catastrophically from time to time. In the mid-1980s, local newspapers reported GTE upgraded the local switches to Automatic Electric GTD5 equipment. News accounts say this was done to roll out new services which were offered in the surrounding RBOC area but could not be supported by the Automatic Electric No. 1EAX. The reliability of service was improved overnight and now matches surrounding areas.

The Mountain Office served the Summit Road community and areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains west of town. Although the office code or prefix for service from this switch was ELgato-3 (later 353), it was not referred to as the Three Office. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the area was served by Automatic Electric step-by-step (SXS) electromechanical switching equipment. The step office was a maintenance headache; it being in a rural area made the problem more difficult. Users noticed crosstalk, and dial pulsing was audible during at least some of their calls. Outside the plant in the mountain area was subject to a variety of tough environmental factors, including long loop lengths and the high humidity of the Redwood Forest. The area is now served by remote equipment on Summit Road connected to the central office on Los Gatos Boulevard.

Before the late 1980s and the arrival of cellular and PCS mobile phone service, GTE offered Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) on VHF (152 MHz) and UHF (454 MHz) frequencies in Los Gatos. The service included full-duplex dial service. There were tight restrictions on call lengths because there were only a few channels available. In the late 1970s, daytime calls longer than three minutes were billed at over $1 per minute to discourage the long-winded. The VHF equipment was located near La Rinconada WTP on More Avenue at NAD27 coordinates 37°15′22″N 121°58′59″W / 37.25611°N 121.98306°W / 37.25611; -121.98306. The IMTS system included General Electric mobile radio voting equipment. (Voting is a form of diversity combining used in mobile radio systems on land.) One receiver for at least one of the voted IMTS channels was located in a pole mount-cabinet on a utility pole along Montevina Road off California State Route 17. These IMTS systems were dismantled after cellular systems became available to subscribers in the Bay Area.