10-Digit Dialing In Line For Ohio

Monday, September 11, 2000

Lornet Turnbull
Dispatch Staff Reporter

It took Donna Grace Froehle awhile to get the hang of dialing 10 digits, including an area code different from her own, just to reach her next-door neighbors.

Froehle lives in Genoa Township in Delaware County, has a Westerville mailing address and was assigned a 740 area code when 614 was split two years ago. Some of her neighbors remained in 614.

Dialing the area code "was a real pain at first,'' Froehle said.

"Now, I've gotten so used to it that when I'm in Columbus, I automatically start dialing 10 digits to reach another Columbus number. That's when you get that recording that tells you you don't need to.''

Froehle might be ahead of her time. Within two years, telephone subscribers in the 614 area code could find themselves in the same tangle.

Fueled by a rapid demand for new numbers, the area code that covers Columbus and some of its suburbs will run dry by 2002, sooner than anticipated.

One likely solution is overlaying a new area code on top of the 614 territory.

Under that arrangement, subscribers keep the old area code, and new customers are assigned the new one. All calls within the region would require 10-digit dialing but would remain toll-free.

The approach is approved for use in the Akron and Toledo areas and is one gaining popularity nationwide as telephone numbers are gobbled up.

"If that's pushed through, you'll survive it,'' Froehle said with a laugh.

A planning committee will begin studying area-code options for 614 next month and is to recommend action to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio by Jan. 10.

Though a split similar to the 740 break-off two years ago is an option, precedents suggest that an overlay will be seriously considered.

The 330 area code that includes the Akron and Youngstown areas will be the first in the state to get an overlay, with the introduction of 234 next month.

The 419 area covering Toledo has been assigned an overlay area code of 567 that is to take effect in 2002. And both an overlay and a split have been recommended for Cincinnati's 513 area code, which is to run out of numbers by next year.

"For folks who grew up dialing just four digits, going to seven was a shock,'' said James Katz, professor of communication at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick.

Now, 10-digit dialing has become a way of life, Katz said.

"Just as there're going to be more Internet users, more cars on the road and planes in the sky, you're going to have to dial more digits on your phone.''

The proliferation of cellular telephones, computer modems and second home telephones is sapping the supply of telephone numbers. Pay-at-the-pump gas stations, ATMs and credit-card machines at store checkouts use data lines that further drain the supply.

NeuStar Inc., the administrator of the North American Numbering Plan that predicts area-code saturation, has handed out 133 new codes since 1995. Its region covers the United States, Canada and parts of the Caribbean.

California alone now has 25 area codes. And by 2002, Ohio could have 12 -- triple what it had four years ago.

It can be a bit disconcerting, Katz said. "Used to be, you used to know certain things about area codes and you identified cities with them.

"You knew that if you wanted to call Manhattan, the area code was 212; Washington was 202. Now you have area codes like 858 and 935. Where in the world are those?''

Growth and technology aren't the only culprits in the rapid consumption of telephone numbers. In fact, in some areas, a lack of growth is also to blame.

Local telephone and cellphone companies are issued telephone numbers in 10,000-unit blocks. Each area code has about 780 possible blocks of numbers, for a total of 7.8 million.

But many of those numbers go unused when the blocks are assigned to small telephone companies with only a few hundred subscribers.

"The state has plenty of these small phone companies not serving enough customers to draw from their pot,'' said Beth Gianforcaro, a spokeswoman with the utilities commission.

She said PUCO has asked the Federal Communications Commission to issue numbers in smaller blocks, a method known as pooling, as well as to reclaim unused numbers for reuse.

Regulators in Ohio and other states also have asked the FCC to approve technology-specific codes, allowing new area codes to be issued for mobile phones, pagers, data lines and other nonvoice services. The FCC, which has a standing order prohibiting that approach, has agreed to reconsider.

"If you're using the machine at the checkout line in the grocery store, I don't think it matters to you what the area code is,'' Gianforcaro said.

It does, however, matter to mobile- phone carriers, who say distributing area codes that way would disrupt their customers and pose a hardship to the industry.

So the struggle continues for states looking for ways to replenish phone- number supplies. Increasingly, they are turning to the overlay option -- but not always to the delight of consumers.

Subscribers in at least 14 states live in regions with an overlay area code, said Barbara Blackwell, a NeuStar spokeswoman. And from Florida to California, regulators are finding resistance from subscribers who say overlays are inconvenient and a hassle.

Gianforcaro said a major advantage is that an overlay doesn't require existing subscribers to change area codes. The trouble comes when subscribers don't know when the 10 digits they're dialing will mean a charge.

A new PUCO order to take effect in April will help by requiring all local, nontoll calls between area codes to be 10 digits only. An 11-digit call would carry charges.

For now, there are a few rules of thumb, said David Bergmann, assistant consumers' counsel with the Ohio Consumers Counsel.

"If you only have to dial seven digits, it's definitely a local call,'' he said.

And a call that was local before an area-code change will be local afterward. If you think all this is bad, consider how much worse it can get.

NeuStar predicts that at today's rate of usage, all available phone numbers will be exhausted in as few as 12 years.