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Guessing they want a local number because the apartment complex doesn't want to pay for long distance calling.

For us it was specifically because they didn't want people opening the door remotely. They wanted you to be local.

I haven't paid for long distance calling since the 1990s. I think it's just people being lazy and choosing poor defaults.

How many of these buzzers have remained unchanged since the 1990s?

Also, long distance appears to be at least $20/month extra on a standard small business landline here (Bell Canada). That's not much, but I can see it happening for something the landlord would think of as a non-feature: Because why wouldn't you have a phone number in the area you live?

I'm not sure a small business line is the best comparison for an apartment building, and I think most landlords are familiar with the existence of cellphones by now. But it's true that many buzzers like that have been in place for a long time - but I do think that that's the landlord's problem, like any other non-working fixture.

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