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Some wanted to carve up existing areas into smaller pieces; others favored giving the new area codes only to new customers, no matter where they live. Their positions became so frozen that the companies finally gave up last year and told state regulators the industry would have no recommendation. Yet in New Hampshire and Maine, many of the same companies that were at loggerheads here came to agreement quickly. Their solution: Give the new numbers to the newcomers - the so-called ''overlay'' plan. So why can't the Massachusetts telephone industry agree on a plan? Some say it is because the financial stakes are so much higher here. One source here said a majority of companies favored an overlay approach for 617 and 508, but the vote was not decisive enough to forward a unified recommendation to state regulators. So the companies forwarded a series of options, including overlays and various proposals for splitting the existing four area codes into eight. AT&T and MCI WorldCom say an overlay would give a competitive edge to Bell Atlantic, since most of its customers would remain in the existing area codes. ''I think it's the environment that's different'' between Massachusetts and the other states, said James Deak of Lockheed Martin IMS, the company coordinating area-code relief efforts around the country. ''When you're looking at Maine and New Hampshire, you're looking at rural states that have had one area code from the very beginning. The Boston market is highly competitive. The stakes are much higher there.'' A spokeswoman for MCI WorldCom, Elena French, said her company fought against the overlay solution in Maine and Massachusetts, but with more success here because there were more companies as allies against Bell Atlantic and wireless companies. ''We fought in Maine,'' she said, ''but how long can you fight?'' Even though the industry was able to reach agreement on a course of action in Maine and New Hampshire, regulators in those states have not yet accepted the advice and are just as frustrated as Massachusetts officials with the wasteful way numbers are being handed out to telecommunications companies. The number-distribution system requires numbers to be issued to companies in blocks of 10,000, with at least one block for each geographic rate center a company will serve. The system was designed when just one company, AT&T, was distributing numbers to customers. But now that many companies have moved into the local arena, the system is overwhelmed. Bill Nugent, one of three commissioners at the Maine Public Utilities Commission, said one company offering service to Internet service providers in Maine requested phone numbers in 55 of the state's rate centers. That meant the company amassed 550,000 phone numbers even though it plans to use only a tiny fraction of those numbers. ''They're using a handful of numbers in each of these blocks, but they're burning 550,000 numbers. Something is wrong with this picture,'' he said. Nugent said Maine has 1.25 million people, 700,000 installed phone lines, and 7.8 million phone numbers for existing and future lines available in the 207 area code. ''It seems hard to believe we can't accommodate 1.25 million people with 7.8 million phone lines,'' he said. New Hampshire is struggling with the same problem. Kate Bailey, assistant chief engineer at the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, said the state has 1 million installed phone lines and 7.6 million available phone numbers in area code 603. Like her counterparts in states around the country, she said the problem is the way numbers are being issued. ''There has to be a better way,'' she said. Officials in New York and Illinois are testing systems to distribute numbers in smaller quantities. Early reports indicate progress is being made, but the big question mark is whether the number-distribution system can be designed to work more efficiently before existing area codes run out of numbers. Nugent says he believes new technologies will solve the area-code crunch in Maine. And in New Hampshire, Bailey is hopeful. But as a safeguard, each state is developing a plan for a new area code in case it is needed next year. Both states are relucant to split their single area codes into two, but both are also wary of ordering an overlay and requiring everyone to dial at least 10 digits every time they make a call. The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that with overlay, all users have to dial at least 10 numbers for every call so everyone is treated equally. Otherwise, people in the new area code would be at a disadvantage. Both states have followed developments closely in Massachusetts. They saw Massachusetts create the 978 and 781 area codes in 1997 only to announce that four more area codes may be needed early next year. ''Massachusetts is frequently cited up here,'' Bailey said. ''As in, `we don't want to go there.''' This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on
01/18/99. |