Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.
A lord provost (Scottish Gaelic: rd-Phrobhaist) is the convenor of the local authority, the civic head and the lord-lieutenant of one of the principal cities of Scotland. The office is similar to that of a lord mayor. Only the cities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow have a lord provost; other Scottish local authorities have provosts or convenors, which are similar offices to that of a mayor. Perth (as a city) previously termed its civil leader a "lord provost", but from the Second World War onwards has preferred the simple term Provost of Perth.
A lord provost has a higher status than a lord mayor in other parts of the United Kingdom. They are ex officio the lord-lieutenant for that city, in accordance with section 1 of the Lieutenancies Act 1997, which allows the city council to choose its own representative for the monarch.
The lord provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow enjoy the style of "The Right Honourable" before their office, but not their names.
Permission to use the title is granted to a city by the monarch, under the royal prerogative, acting on the advice of government ministers.
Subscriber trunk dialling (STD), also known as subscriber toll dialing, is a telephone numbering plan feature and telecommunications technology for the dialling of trunk calls by telephone subscribers without the assistance from switchboard operators.
Switching systems to enable automatic dialling of long distance calls by subscribers were introduced in the United Kingdom on 5 December 1958. The system used area codes that were based on the letters in a town's name. A ceremonial first call was made by Queen Elizabeth II from Bristol to Edinburgh. A similar service, built on crossbar equipment, using regionally structured numbering, rather than alphanumeric codes, was experimentally introduced by P&T in Ireland in 1957, with the first services being in Athlone. A full service was rolled out in 1958, initially to exchanges in Cork and then Dublin and its hinterland, and gradually to all areas with automatic exchanges.The term 'STD call' was once commonly used in the UK, Ireland, Australia, India, and parts of Southeast Asia, but it may be considered archaic today, or possibly even no longer be understood. Other less technical terms like 'national calling,' 'long distance calling' and so on are now more commonly used. The distinction between local and long distance / STD calls is also no longer relevant to many users, as calls are charged at flat or bundled rates. It is also necessary to dial area codes on most (or all) calls, especially from mobile phones, so they are considered part of the number.
Terms such as 'area code', 'prefix' or 'national dialling code' tend to be used in place of STD code in the UK and in Ireland.