Well, I knew his area code, 508. I'd been calling for years. And it seemed extremely unlikely that his phone was "not in service" if his company was still in business.

But I've been known, on occasion, for dyslexic dialing. I've caught myself dialing 580 instead of 508. So I dialed again, being very careful to dial 508-not 580 -and the remaining seven digits. Again, "The number you have called is not in service at this time. Please check the area code and dial again." I tried once more. This time, the automated response was, "Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again. Please check the area code and dial again."

I know I dialed correctly this time, so the situation, sadly, seemed to be obvious. Fred's company was gone. This came as a major surprise because Fred's company was very successful. It had well-engineered products as well as strong sales and marketing.

Perhaps I should check the area code, I thought. But how does one check the area code if one doesn't know it? Call 508 and ask if it's 508?

I decided to try calling again. This time, I apparently caught a different Bell Atlantic answering machine. "The area code for the number you have dialed has been changed from 508 to 978. Please hang up and try again," it said. I tried the area code 978 and it worked. Fred's company was fine. It's just that the Bell Atlantic machine that gave me the new area code didn't communicate with the Bell Atlantic machine that told me that the number was not in service at this time or the Bell Atlantic machine that told me the call could not be completed as dialed.

I encountered a similar message from AT&T for a New Jersey call, "The number has been disconnected or is no longer in service," when I finally discovered that area 973 had replaced some of area 201.

Bell Atlantic and AT&T are great communications companies. So they must have a reason for not having better-informed machines communicate with the machines that are less well-informed. In any event, I'm glad we live in an age of communications.

Contact George at grostky@cmp.com.