New area codes set to hit SE Pa.

In 12 days, dialing 10 digits for any call wil be an option. Starting on June 5, it will be mandatory. It's time to start thinking about your area code as more than an occasional addition to your phone number or a three-digit prefix you use exclusively for long-distance calls. Beginning December 5, dialing 10 digits -- the area code plus phone number without the "1" prefix -- will be optional for all calls within and between the 215 and 610 area codes. The 10-digit calling system will become mandatory on June 5, replacing seven digit phone numbers. The change is the result of Bell Atlantic's decision to double the number of area codes serving Southeastern Pennsylvania, as the existing supply of numbers within each area code is exhausted. All numbers assigned after June 5 will receive an "overlay code" -- 267 for the 215 region, which serves Philadelphia and some northern suburbs, and 484 for the 610 area, which abuts the 215 region to the north and west. At Penn, students, professors and employees will still be able to dial five digits for on-campus calls. Calls from on-campus exchanges to off-campus numbers within the Philadelphia area will require 10 digits. "It's actually not so painful," said Laurie Cousart, Penn's director of telecommunications and campus card services. "The overlay is going to impact Penn pretty much as it's going to impact anyone else." Both Penn and Bell Atlantic plan to launch awareness campaigns to keep customers informed. Cousart said Penn's effort would focus on the two major dates: December 5 and June 5. Information packets for students moving in next fall will also be updated, Cousart said. According to Bell Atlantic officials, the new area codes and dialing patterns, perceived by many as a nuisance, are a necessary response to the drain of numbers from the existing area codes as devices like modems, beepers, fax machines and cell phones proliferate. The shortage has precipitated an explosion of area codes nationwide in recent years. Bell Atlantic's decision to use "overlay codes" stems from the utility's experience with the splitting of Southeastern Pennsylvania into two codes, 610 and 215, in 1994. "When we implemented 610, we heard loud and clear about how costly that split was to [customers]," said Bell Atlantic spokesperson Sharon Shaffer, referring to the many who were forced to change business cards, stationery and systems with preprogrammed dialing instructions. "When another option became viable, that is clearly what we preferred to do." But some say the proliferation of area codes -- it took 40 years for Philadelphia to use up its first area code and only four years for the number to double again -- has more to do with the phone companies and less to do with customers using ever-increasing numbers of devices. John Hanger, the immediate past commissioner of the Pennsylvania Utilities Commission, said the new area codes are only a temporary patch. "They will last no more than five years," Hanger said. Hanger said the root of the problem is the outmoded system used for allocating area codes. Today, if a company wants to provide phone service, it must request numbers from Lockheed Martin's telecommunications division, which administers the distribution of numbers. But because of the outdated technology used by the phone companies, numbers can only be assigned in blocks of 10,000 -- even if a company only has 10 customers to serve. That worked fine when the old American Telephone and Telegraph Company was the only provider of phone service, but in today's deregulated world, start-up service providers often have customer bases numbering only in the hundreds. Compounding the problem, companies must request a number block of 10,000 in every rate center -- the area within which calls are billed at the minimum rate -- that the company wishes to serve. Hanger estimated the number of rate centers in the 215 area code at about 50, meaning that a company would have to request 500,000 numbers -- 50 blocks of 10,000 -- to serve the entire 215 region. No one is sure exactly how many numbers lie unused, but it is certain that companies have no incentive to return the numbers for use by competitors. "The phone industry is not going to [reform] voluntarily," Hanger said. "It's time to get the government officials to do their job and police this industry." Proponents of reform believe that two concrete steps should be taken: upgrading the hardware used to enable number assignment as needed, in blocks of 1,000 or smaller; and cutting the number of rate centers, decreasing the number of blocks a company needs to request to serve a code region. Penn is unaffected by the numbers drain, thanks in large part to the single operator control of the system. At present, the University controls three exchanges -- 417, 898 and 573 -- for a total of 30,000 phone numbers. Cousart said that only 23,000 of those numbers are in use. She added that Penn has reserved another exchange for future use.