Western Michigan Gets a New 231 Area Code

Saturday, June 5, 1999
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Western Michigan
Gets a New 231 Area Code

Associated Press

BIG RAPIDS -- Michigan's eighth area code makes its debut Saturday, and western Michigan has until October to get used to it.
The new 231 area code will be split from the area covered by the 616 code, along a line drawn roughly along the northern borders of Ottawa, Kent and Ionia counties.
Residents north of the line -- including those in Muskegon, Ludington, Traverse City, Petoskey and Mackinaw City -- will get the new 231 area code. Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids will keep the 616 area code. Optional dialing begins Saturday, and both codes will work until Oct. 2.
The new area code was necessary due to a dwindling supply of phone numbers, thanks to faxes, cell phones and other devices, said Rebecca Barnhart, a spokeswoman for Lockeed Martin IMS. Lockheed Martin is the company chosen by the federal government to oversee the assignment of area codes nationwide.
"It's happening all over the country," Ms. Barnhart told The Pioneer of Big Rapids. "People are demanding more phone numbers -- more and more we're becoming a multiple phone society."
But another, little-known reason driving the new codes is the way telephone numbers are assigned, in blocks of 10,000, leaving many numbers unused.
The Federal Communications Commission has asked for comment on several ideas to conserve phone numbers, in an attempt to slow the growth in area codes. The United States now has about 215 area codes, almost double the 119 in service in 1991. Industry officials project the need for 30 new codes a year unless changes are made.
Under the existing system, created in the days of the telephone monopoly, competing local carriers acquire a block of 10,000 numbers for every billing region they wish to serve. An area code may cover dozens or hundreds of such regions.
If a carrier has only 100 customers in a given region, the remaining 9,900 numbers of the block are tied up. As few as half of the available number combinations for each area code are actually assigned before a new code is requested.
The commission proposed assigning numbers in smaller blocks, such as 1,000 at a time, and expanding the size of billing regions to reduce the number of blocks needed. The commission also has proposed requiring telephone companies to assign more of their numbers before requesting new blocks.
The relief options outlined by the commission would not stop new area codes in the works but could prevent or delay the need for others in the future.
"Consumers have to go through the trouble of alerting friends and relatives to the changes, and businesses have to spend money notifying their customers," FCC Chairman Bill Kennard said last week. "If we take responsible action now, we can avoid confronting a catastrophe in the future."