Three years ago, Tucson Arizona was granted the Area Code of 520, the first area code in America without a 0 or a 1 as the middle digit. Since then, the various phone companies have littered the country with more than 200 new area codes. The new area codes cost businesses nearly $10 million per new area code in advertising the new phone number, and reprogramming of cellular phones and beepers. And, if that is not enough, many residents of many cities now have to dial 10 digits, just to call their neighbors.
Is this just a hazard of the expanding communications market? No, it is the hazard of phone monopolies unwilling to invest in new technology necessary to free up numbers. Under the current technology, the phone company can only assign numbers in blocks of 10,000. That means pager companies with only a dozen clients are hoarding away 10,000 phone numbers. The technology exists to reduce the number of phone numbers to blocks of 100 or so, but the phone companies are unwilling to invest in the new technology. They would rather demand new Area Codes and pass the expense to the general public.
How many phone numbers are really needed? If 250 million Americans had 4 phone numbers assigned (a work number, a home number, a pager/cellular number, and a modem number), it would require 1 billion numbers. That is (100)000-0000 phone numbers. That is to say, approximately 100 area codes would do the trick. Under the old area code numbering system, there were 160 area codes. Now, America is fast approaching 400 area codes with no end in sight.
More and more corporations, and local governments are finally fighting back. Last February, in Pennsylvania, Bell Atlantic requested a new area code, the third in as many years. The state corporation commission turned them down, telling them they need to conserve numbers. Right On! The phone companies unwillingness to spend a few million dollars to upgrade their system, will cost the public a few billion dollars to play by their rules.
Update (April 99): There are now 10 phone numbers for every man, woman, and child in the United States and Canada, (a total of 265 area codes) and the FCC still does not think it is enough.
Update (June 1999): U.S. FCC Moves To Ease Area Code Crunch
By Aaron Pressman
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal regulators Thursday moved to ease the area code crunch that has sown confusion and outraged telephone consumers who are increasingly required to dial 10 digits to make a local call.
The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the area code system, proposed a series of steps to reduce the need for new area codes, including doling out numbers to new telephone companies in smaller blocks and creating incentives for carriers to make more efficient use of numbers they already control.
The FCC's move was meant to avert a crisis that is only 10 to 15 years away -- the complete exhaustion of all possible U.S. area codes. That would require revamping the entire system to add an 11th digit to all phone numbers at a cost of $50 billion to $150 billion.
The number of assigned area codes has more than doubled in the past few years owing to skyrocketing use of cellular phones and pagers along with the growth of competitive local phone carriers. Consumers and businesses must spend about $30 million after an area code change to cover costs like printing new stationary and notifying friends or customers.
Under the current system, when a new telephone company needs phone numbers in a particular area code for its customers, it receives 10,000 numbers at once -- from 862-0000 to 862-9999 for example.But the company may not have nearly that many customers in each area.
Using new technology that allows phone switching centers to connect local calls more easily, the FCC proposed handing out numbers in blocks of 1,000.
And the agency proposed limiting a company from getting a new block of numbers until it has used a certain percentage of its existing pool of numbers.
The proposals, along with others such as charging carriers for use of numbers, were issued for comment. The agency is likely to approve some or all of the proposals by the end of the year, FCC officials said.Some state regulators have asked the FCC to go farther and grant them discretion to take more radical actions. The agency also asked for comment on those ideas, although specific state requests are likely to be addressed individually as well.
The need for 10-digit dialing to make local calls -- a practice that particularly irks consumers -- has risen dramatically as regulators have added new area codes onto the same geographic boundaries of an existing code. Known as an overlay, the practice can result in next-door neighbors having different area codes.
Some state regulators, seeking to avoid overlays, would like to segregate users of wireless or pager services into new area codes, leaving numbers in the older area code for land line customers. Current FCC policy prohibits such practices.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, new area codes were added at a rate of about one every two years. But in the last four years, the pace has increased to 20 to 25 new codes per year.
In California alone, which had just 13 area codes in 1992, regulators project a need for 41 codes in 2002.