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New area code to make all calls 10 digits
Friday, December 31, 1999 By Mike Bucsko and Ken Zapinski, Post-Gazette Staff Writers
Get ready to exercise those digits -- we're getting a new area code
that will require people to dial at least 10 numbers for every call.
And people calling outside their area code, say a 412 number to a 724
number, will have to dial 1, then 10 digits -- the area code and
telephone number. Calls from 412 to 724 at present don't require the 1.
The new area code -- 878 -- was announced yesterday by the North
American Numbering Plan Administration, an agency that assigns new area
codes to the telecommunications industry in the United States, Canada,
Bermuda and 16 Caribbean countries.
The new 878 area code will be an overlay, which means it will blanket
the area now covered by 412 and 724. By mid-2001, new business and
residential customers should be assigned telephone exchanges within the
878 area code, said Rebecca Barnhart, spokeswoman for NeuStar Inc. in
Washington, D.C. An exact timetable will be determined when a regional
telecommunications group meets in two weeks, she said.
When 878 is in place, all telephone customers will be required to
dial 10-digit numbers for local calls. If you are in the 412 area and
want to call Uncle Ernie down the street, also in the 412 area code,
you'll have to dial the area code and his telephone number. Same goes
for a call to Aunt Ella in the 724 area code, except you'll also have to
dial 1 first.
And if Aunt Ella and Uncle Ernie get new cellular telephones after
the middle of 2001, you'll likely be dialing "1-878" before
the numbers.
There was little government involvement, outside of notification,
required for the birth of the new area code.
NeuStar Inc.'s predecessor, Communications Industry Services of
Lockheed Martin IMS, notified the state Public Utility Commission in
August that it would begin implementing the overlay plan unless the
regulators objected by Dec. 1.
The PUC stepped into the 412-724 controversy several years ago
because the telecommunications industry could not agree on the best way
to implement the 724 area code, PUC spokesman Eric Levis said. The
result then was that most of Allegheny County retained the 412 area
code, while outlying counties were switched to 724.
This time around, there is no such dissension so the PUC didn't get
involved, Levis said.
Southwestern Pennsylvania will become the 10th area in the United
States to add an overlay area code, Barnhart said. Philadelphia added
two new overlay area codes earlier this year, joining Atlanta, Cape
Canaveral, Fla., Dallas, Denver, Houston, Manhattan, Miami and the state
of Maryland.
Unlike the addition of 724 within the old 412 area, the 878 area code
will not require any customers to switch their current telephone numbers
to a new area code. But it will add another area code to some
municipalities, such as Moon and Plum, that were split with the 412 and
724 area codes.
"Given the option of an overlay or a split, I'd rather have an
overlay," said state Rep. John Pippy, R-Moon. "They've already
split my district, so I'm already calling 10 digits."
Some companies prepared for the inevitability of another area code
after 724 began on Feb. 1, 1998.
Security Systems of America, a residential and commercial security
firm in Wilkinsburg, began programming its new alarm installations with
a toll-free telephone number after the last area code switch to prevent
costly alterations each time new area codes were assigned, said Andrew
Nesky, the company's administrator.
"This is the way that telecom people have decided they are going
to solve their problems and we have no choice but to adapt to it,"
Nesky said.
The addition of 878 was caused by the impending expiration of
available exchanges in the 412 and 724 area codes, Barnhart said. The
exchange is the three digits that follow the area code.
In October, members of a regional group of telecommunications
companies determined that the 412 area code was "in jeopardy,"
a term which means the amount of available exchanges in the area code
would run out sooner than predicted, at the end of next year, she said.
Of the nearly 800 telephone exchanges in the 412 area code, about 160
remain available. Some of them will have to be reserved for new service
providers, Barnhart said.
There are 210 exchanges remaining in the 724 area code, she said.
It's not that there is a shortage of unused phone numbers in the 412
and 724 area codes. Even with the explosive growth of computers, fax
machines, cellular phones and pagers, plenty of numbers remain.
Fewer than one-third of the nearly 8 million possible phone numbers
in 412 were in use when the 724 area code was created in 1998.
The problem is the numbers of companies wanting to sell us the
wonders of modern telecom service. Each of them needs numbers to
distribute to their customers. And the way the system is set up, if a
company needs even one number, it's given 10,000 for its inventory.
Thanks to the telephone network's 1940s-era routing system, numbers
in Pennsylvania are only distributed to companies by exchange --
555-0000 through 555-9999, for instance. So if a paging company has a
dozen customers in a given area, the remaining 9,988 numbers go unused
but are unavailable to any other company.
"We have to stop squandering our numbers," state Consumer
Advocate Irwin Popowsky said.
The PUC is trying. In 1997, it told telecom companies to begin
distributing numbers in 1,000-number blocks instead of 10,000 at a time.
After some companies protested, the Federal Communications Commission
stopped the PUC, saying state regulators did not have authority to make
such changes. Since then, the FCC has permitted states to ask for
special permission to distribute by 1,000-number blocks.
Illinois and New York began trials this year, and the PUC last week
asked the FCC for similar permission, Popowsky said, "to prevent
the further collapse of the area codes. But I think it's too late to
save 412 and 724 ... They were in jeopardy almost immediately because of
the crazy way we hand out numbers."
While an overlay doesn't require current customers to change phone
numbers, there is a downside, Popowsky said. "Most people will not
be able to remember all 10 digits. We'll all rely on programming our
phone dialers," he said.
The 878 area code will be phased in over the next 18 or 19 months. In
the next several months, telephone customers will be asked to begin
dialing 10-digit numbers for every call. Then in 2001, the new exchanges
will be doled out and 10-digit dialing will be mandatory.
The future holds promise of even more button-pushing.
Eventually, all of the three-digit area codes will be in use. Current
industry estimates predict that will occur around 2030, give or take
five years. The telecom industry is looking at several solutions,
including four-digit area codes, eight-digit telephone numbers or both.
The industry already is wrestling with the question because adapting
the system to handle such a fundamental change would take decades.
Consider what happened when the original pool of area codes -- those
with either 1 or 0 as the middle digit -- approached exhaustion in 1994.
Telephone companies had begun in the 1960s preparing their equipment
for the day when area codes would have the numbers 2 through 9 as their
middle digits. It took them nearly 30 years.
But then we know all about how difficult it can be for computers to
deal with two simple digits.
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