Corporate Convenience Is What Underlies The Area Code Overlays

s seven-digit telephone dialing a thing of the past? Must we
all learn to memorize 10 digits, and also first dial a 1, even if
it's to make a call to the next-door neighbor or to the new phone
installed in your teenager's bedroom?
That's the way it will be if SBC Communications Inc., the
Texas-based conglomerate that owns Pacific Bell, has its way. And
what SBC, with its a huge lobbying operation on the state and
federal level, wants, SBC usually gets. The FCC recently approved
a $72-billion merger between SBC and Ameritech, making it the
nation's largest phone company providing local service.
In pleadings before the Federal Communications Commission,
SBC has demanded that seven-digit dialing be cast into oblivion and
that all numbers in the U.S. be overlayed with new "area" codes that
bear no obvious connection to an actual geographical area.
"Ultimately, the battle to preserve seven-digit dialing is doomed
to failure," SBC asserted in a filing with the California Public Utilities
Commission. Recently, the company appealed to the FCC to block
a request by the CPUC and regulatory agencies from five other
states to change the way phone numbers are allocated, which would
ease the pressure for area code overlay and splits. California argues
that of the state's 180 million numbers in the hands of the phone
companies, only 37 million are in use.
"In California," the PUC warned in its filing, "a significant
segment of the public is now aware that . . . the number 'shortage' is
completely artificial, and the need to create new area codes is thus
spurious."
The old-line phone companies, the so-called "Baby Bells," as
represented by SBC, created the current wasteful system of
allocating telephone numbers in blocks of 10,000 to phone service
providers, whether they had any customers at all. This system has
created a false number shortage leading to this current pressure for
area code splits and overlays. Yet SBC insists in its FCC filings that
there's no time to permit the states to explore alternatives because
there's an urgent shortage of new phone numbers.
There isn't. For example, in the 310 area code, the first slated
for overlay in California, SBC concedes that its competitors in the
310 area have more than 1 million unused numbers. Even if SBC
itself were to run out of numbers, by its own admission, competitors
are poised to step in and provide the needed service.
SBC even admits that its concern is that its competitors will be
better positioned to fill new business orders. In short, new local
phone service--read that competition--would be provided by
newcomers to the field.
Some might have thought that Congress intended just such an
outcome when it passed the landmark Telecommunications Act of
1996, which mandated competition in the previously monopolized
phone business. But while we have witnessed intense competition
among long-distance carriers, there has been precious little for local
phone service.
The Telecommunications Act was intended, or so its
congressional authors claimed at the time, to put you, the consumer,
in control of choosing local as well as long-distance service. Indeed,
the principle of "number portability," meaning that you the customer
and not the phone company own your phone number, was
enshrined in the law.
You have the legal right to retain your number and switch from
one phone company provider to another. But as a matter of
practice, that option is rarely offered in the local market or enforced
by the FCC. Yet the FCC permits phone companies to charge you
as much as 50 cents each month per line for five years, amounting
to hundreds of millions of dollars, to recoup the claimed cost of
implementing number portability, which is supposed to be in place.
Recognizing the failure of the Telecommunications Act to protect
the consumer, legislators have proposed bills in Congress to rectify
this very serious omission. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has
introduced S765, with strong bipartisan support that would end the
area code mess. A similar bill, HR 2439, was introduced last week
by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) requiring that phone companies
stop the current wasteful number allocation system. He cites the
FCC's estimate that at the current rate of misallocation of phone
numbers, even with a maximum number of area code splits and
overlays, we will run out of numbers in seven years, at which time it
could cost as much as $150 billion to fix the problem.
The bills before Congress mandate that number portability be
made a reality, and that this technology also be used to allow more
efficient distribution of numbers, averting any future shortage. That's
your right, you're paying for it, and Congress should act to make it a
reality.

Robert Scheer Is a Contributing Editor to The Times.
E-mail: Rscheer@aol.com


	Corporate Convenience Is What Underlies The Area Code Overlays Telephones: Forget consumers. Big firms want to head off competition by locking up the numbering system best for industry. By ROBERT SCHEER