New Area Code Sought For
Part Of Southeast Louisiana

By CARL REDMAN
Capitol news bureau

Baton Rouge area residents ringing up friends and family on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain or along Bayou Lafourche will have to start dialing a new area code next year.

On Wednesday the state Public Service Commission recommended dividing Louisiana’s current 504 area code region into two districts and letting the heavily populated New Orleans area keep the 504 code.

The district eyed for the new area code includes a section of the current 504 area code district north of Lake Pontchartrain, stretching from Tangipahoa Parish to the Mississippi line. The new area code district also would include the section of the 504 district stretching along Bayou Lafourche from around Napoleonville south into the Terrebonne area and along the Gulf Coast from St. Mary Parish to lower Plaquemines Parish.

Much of that area is adjacent to the 225 area code district that was broken off the 504 area a couple of years ago.

By sometime next year the 504 area code will continue only in the immediate New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and St. Bernard Parish area.

New area codes are springing up all over the nation because the proliferation of cell phones, faxes and other communication devices are gobbling up most of the phone numbers available in the old area-code districts.

Commissioner Jimmy Field said he thinks Lockheed Martin Corp., the consulting firm that administers the area-code system, will accept the proposed geographic division within a few weeks.

Field said he expects that by Feb. 1 callers into the new area-code district will begin a six-month transition period during which either the new area code or the current 504 code will work.

Field said that by August or September 2001 only the new area code will work for long-distance calls into the new area-code district.

Field said he expects a three-digit number will be selected for the new district by the end of the year.

"What they’ve done in the past is give us three numbers and let us decide," Field said. "... I hope we are as lucky as to get easy numbers like we’ve gotten in the past."

The state’s area code divisions began with the Baton Rouge area being carved out of the 504 area.

Last fall a swath across southwest Louisiana from the Lafayette area to the Texas line was broken off the 318 area code region and given a new 337 area code. Beginning July 10 only the 337 code will work in that area.

PSC staffer Arnold Chauviere said dividing the current 504 area code district should not change rates for any subscribers.

Chauviere said no one knows exactly how many phone subscribers will be affected by the area code changes because some phone services, such as wireless carriers, don’t report to the PSC.

Chauviere said BellSouth is the largest telephone service provider in the affected area, with about 1 million separate phone lines in use by its customers.

Chauviere said that, if the new area code configuration is approved, about 700,000 of those BellSouth lines will remain in the 504 area and about 300,000 will be in the new area.

The PSC and its staff have been studying the need for a new area code in the 504 district for months and have considered several alternatives.

The only other major alternative was what is called an "overlay" plan.

With an overlay plan, two area codes are used for the same geographic area.

The disadvantage of such a system is that it requires the use of the area code for even local calls. Phone users would have to use 10 digits to place local calls.

The PSC has resisted overlay plans in the past and said the geographic split is more desirable.

Field said people in the St. Mary-Terrebonne area prefer the new geographic division to an overlay plan, especially after being told it would keep that area safe from another area code change for as much as 17 years.

The PSC will try to get Lockheed Martin Corp. to allow wireless-phone subscribers in the new area-code district the option of continuing to use the 504 area code or have their units reprogrammed to use the new code.