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Valley Cities May Be Split Under New Plans For 408
BY CONNIE SKIPITARES
If you live in Willow Glen or Campbell or Saratoga, you may have to dial a few more digits to call your neighbor. That's if any one of 16 different plans to slice up the 408 area code in Santa Clara County is approved.
A host of scenarios for new area codes threatens to split cities, divide the northern part of the county from the southern part, or force customers to dial ``1'' plus an area code just to call a few blocks or a few miles away.
Citing growth in Silicon Valley that is outpacing the pool of existing phone numbers, phone industry leaders and state utility officials this week unveiled several different plans that would carve up the county and create another area code or two.
The proposals are being presented to the public this week to help determine a final plan that will take up to six months to develop. A new area code or codes could go into effect as early as November 1999. The last of the public meetings will be held Thursday night in Los Gatos and Morgan Hill.
Officials don't expect any rate changes to occur because of the new area codes.
Today, California has 20 area codes, 13 of which have been added since 1991 because of explosive growth. Within the next five years officials expect to add nine more. Each area code can handle 7.9 million phone numbers. Area code 408 was created in 1959 when it was split from 415, one of the state's three original codes introduced in 1947. Currently, 408 has 5.7 million numbers.
At least one new area code is needed within the next two years because of the county's expanding population and business growth that has created an explosion in phone lines for modems and fax machines and a proliferation of cellular phones and pagers.
``We are running out of numbers unless we make some changes,'' said Eleanor Szeto, an official with the California Public Utilities Commission.
Those changes include creating one or two new area codes in Santa Clara County that would supplement the current 408 area code serving most of the county.
Already in place, another area code -- 650 -- serves the northern part of the county that includes Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos, as well as parts of San Mateo County. And starting in July, a new 831 area code will serve Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, areas currently served by 408.
Complaints Abound
The proposed changes to the rest of 408, although preliminary, already have sparked complaints in certain areas, such as Saratoga, which is slated to be carved up into two code areas. One portion of the city would retain the 408 area code, while the other would take on a new area code.
That scenario would result in a major identity crisis for the city and a major uproar among its citizens, says mayor Don Wolfe.
``In this technical day and age, there's no need to split the town,'' Wolfe says. ``To do this to a small community is just not proper in my book. We want to remain one entity. I don't think it's asking too much to keep one area code for Saratoga.''
But telecommunications officials say it's not as easy as it sounds to create new boundaries because changes are dictated by the location of central phone offices that were built years ago before the rampant growth.
``Splitting now doesn't follow city lines, and that's something we can't get around,'' says Chris Duckett-Brown, a senior engineer with Pacific Bell.
Wolfe attributes the resistance to the usual complaints associated with new area codes: changing stationery, business cards and advertising, updating fax machines and computers and reprogramming auto dialers, speed dialers, alarms and private phone systems.
Owners of cell phones and pagers now programmed with the 408 area code could choose to retain the codes or switch over when all other residential and business customers change to a new area code, says Duckett-Brown.
There is usually a six-month grace period after an area code change kicks in for all customers, officials say.
Splitting Cities
Under the various plans proposed Monday, most cities will remain whole in moving to a new area code or staying in the 408 code. Only Saratoga, Campbell, the Willow Glen neighborhood in central San Jose and the ``Golden Triangle'' business and industrial area of north San Jose would be divided.
Most of the plans call for a logical division between the northern and southern parts of Santa Clara County. One plan calls for the creation of two new area code regions in addition to the 408 area code. The new code areas would be carved out of the more populous northern part of the county.
Another plan proposes that no new area codes be created based on geography but requires that all phone customers use ``1'' plus the area code, then the seven-digit number they're dialing. That would increase the available pool of numbers and avoid duplication but would force customers to dial 11 numbers for every call, no matter where in the area or in the country they are trying to telephone. New customers in the county would then be given a new area code as needed.
Two more Santa Clara County meetings will be held on Thursday, wrapping up the public portion of the planning process for new area codes. One is at Los Gatos Town Hall, 110 E. Main St., Los Gatos, at 1 p.m. The other is at Morgan Hill City Hall, 17555 Peak Ave., Morgan Hill, at 7 p.m.
Anyone interested in submitting written comments may send them to the California Public Utilities Commission, Telecommunications Division, 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, Calif., 94102. Deadline is May 20.