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Glitch City For Area Codes By Max Jarman Valley residents are getting their feet wet with the new area codes that went into effect Thursday, and US West is busy repairing glitches that may have affected as many as 170,000 lines. Since Thursday, the telephone company has been swamped with calls from customers who have tried to use the new area codes, only to get a wrong party or a recording saying the number was not in service. US West, which went through a similar change in Minneapolis-St. Paul last year, says the glitches are to be expected and may continue for a few months. "The good news is that people are trying the area codes during permissive dialing and that we're able to identify and solve the problems," US West spokesman Jim Roof said. A five-month permissive dialing period began Thursday. During that time, calls with or without an area code will go through. After Sept. 1, area code use will be mandatory. Lloyd Brown, a communications manager with the Arizona Department of Agriculture, meticulously added area codes to the approximately 200 numbers in his fax machine's database. But when he tried to send news releases Friday, many of them, particularly to the 623 area code, wouldn't go through. On Thursday, Dan Dillon tried to call his relatives in Mesa using the 480 area code and received a recording that the number was not in service. A caller tried to reach Glendale from San Diego using the area's new 623 prefix and was unable to get through. But when she tried 602, the call worked. Another caller said he was unable to connect with his home in Scottsdale using 480, but got through when he accidently hit 420. "Based on our experience in Minnesota, this is something we can expect to find right up to the point the use of area codes becomes mandatory," Roof said. He estimated the glitches may have initially affected 10 percent of the 1.7 million Valley telephone lines. But, because most people are not yet using the area codes for local calls, it's impossible to determine whether that figure is accurate. "The only way we can tell if there is a problem is if someone reports it to us," Roof said. According to Roof, the problems primarily have involved switches for which the reprogramming didn't take. Some switches prevent 10-digit calls from going through, and have been discovered in all three area codes -- 602, 480 and 623. They seem to be most prevalent in 623. Another problem involves system glitches that route calls to the wrong location. By Monday, Roof said complaints that involve glitches in equipment were tapering off. Brown noticed an improvement later last Friday. When he resent his news release faxes that afternoon, many more reached their destinations. "From the first thing Friday to later in the day, things changed," he said. Still, Roof expects that US West will be discovering and correcting problems and counseling people on 10-digit dialing even after it becomes mandatory. "As people roll through this, we will be dealing with the same questions in May that we are hearing in April," Roof said. Not all the area code problems are under US West's control. Some cellular providers haven't changed their equipment to accept 10-digit calls, and many businesses have yet to similarly adjust their office phone systems. There still are prefixes issued by US West competitors that have not been assigned an area code, and a lot of people are simply misdialing. "They think because it's Phoenix the area code is automatically 602," Roof said. |