COMMENTARY

On Thursday, July 15, 1999, California took a controversial step towards solving the area code explosion that has gripped their state over the last decade. This decision would suspend all pending relief activity in favor of a service-specific statewide overlay.

In our personal opinions, Mr. Knox's idea is foolish at best and disastrous at worst. His bill flies in the face of the FCC, which is itself struggling to enforce existing policies. If upheld this bill would exacerbate rather than solve problems within the state of California, and encourage other states to disregard FEDERAL mandates with respect to telephony as a whole. After all, if one state can dictate their own standards for numbering, why not also for other policies, such as equal access?

Mr. Knox is pandering to the least common denominator while losing sight of the bigger picture. Under his plan, 10-digit dialing would STILL be needed if you were calling a pager, cell phone, or fax machine. In the meantime the biggest consumption of numbering resources, assigning numbers in blocks of 10,000, is left with an undetermined schedule under which a mandatory change to 1,000 blocks would be required. Without it, some form of relief at some point, somewhere in California will continue to be required very rapidly. What then Mr. Knox? With splits and overlays outlawed, do we ration numbers or just tell people not to move into a particular geographic area? Better yet, do we deny phone service, branding it a privilege to the first arrivals in a geographic area? What if the party needing numbers happens to be a police station, hospital, or fire station?

In a rush to appease the clamoring public, the legislature has advocated a really short-sighted solution that does nothing to address the real issue, but "feels good". As individuals fully and intimately familiar with local 10-digit dialing, and still in possession of both our fingers and faculties (and the fingers aren't fatigued from those extra three digits, either), we strongly urge Governor Davis to veto the bill when it reaches his desk.

John Cropper, Co-Webmaster
Eric B. Morson, Co-Webmaster
AreaCode-Info.com

Opinions expressed herein are our own.