sun-sentinel.com staff & wires      
Web-posted: 11:33 a.m. Dec. 4, 2000

WASHINGTON -- The North American Numbering Plan Administration on Monday announced that a new overlay area code -- 754 -- has been assigned to Broward County, which is currently served by the 954 area code.
      The reason: The 954 area code is projected to exhaust itself in the third quarter of 2002.
      Activation dates and the customer education plan for the new overlay code will be determined at a later date, said Thomas C. Foley, NANPA's area code relief planner for the Eastern region.
      Foley added that the addition of the new overlay area code would not affect the cost of telephone calls.
     "Local calls will remain local calls regardless of the area code dialed," Foley said.
      In the overlay plan, an additional area code is added to the same geographic area served by the existing 954 area code. All existing numbers will retain the current area code 954, but new telephone customers for local phone service, cellular and paging services, and alarms, may be assigned a telephone number under the new 754 overlay area code.
     In addition, the Federal Communications Commission requires that all local telephone calls made in an overlay area code use a 10-digit --the area code plus seven digit phone number -- dialing plan.
     In Florida, all local calls made within and between the 954 and the new 754 area codes must be made dialing 10- digits.
     The area code relief plan was recommended by a telecommunications industry group. The group considered several alternatives for relief of the 954 calling area before reaching agreement on the overlay plan.
      The Florida Public Service Commission approved the overlay relief plan last month.
     Foley said the introduction of the new 754 area code is needed due to an increase in competition in the local phone service market, the growing demand by the public for additional telephone numbers, and a technical requirement in the phone network that currently allocates phone numbers in blocks of 10,000.
      NANPA is a neutral, third party administrator that works with the telecommunications industry in developing area code relief plans and other numbering resources throughout the United States, Canada, Bermuda and 16 Caribbean countries.