Make way for a new area code.
Come July 12, telephone callers in the 412 and 724 area codes will have to dial 10 digits to connect. Costs will remain the same.
Calls made with seven digits - without an area code - will not get through. Ten numbers will have to be punched in, even if a call is being placed to a next-door neighbor. For long distance, callers will continue to dial 1 in front of the area code and number.
Southwestern Pennsylvania residents and businesses will then see a third area code - 878 - sprinkled throughout the region, starting on Aug. 17.
The changes are being made to accommodate the growing use of cell phones, computers and beepers.
For now, anyone picking up a phone to call a number in the 724 or 412 area codes can dial seven or 10 digits.
Dorothy Bruzek, Pennsylvania area code education coordinator for Verizon Communications Inc., said the system that permits either seven or 10 digits has been in use since July to give people time to get accustomed to the new concept.
It also allowed customers time to make changes to letterheads and pre-programmed electronic equipment.
Available telephone numbers in the 724 and 412 area codes were rapidly depleting.
An 'overlay' - sprinkling numbers with an 878 area code throughout the region - will make new numbers available while allowing residents and businesses to keep the numbers they have.
The split of the 724-412 area code in spring 1998 was supposed to last the region until 2003. But available numbers could not keep pace with demand.
'There are cellular phones, computers, beepers - the whole gamut of new devices that are taking and using new phone numbers,' said Verna Edmonds, information specialist with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
Also straining the supply of available phone numbers was the practice of allocating them in blocks of 10,000 to telephone service providers.
The practice, dating back to the 1947 North American Numbering Plan mandated by the Federal Communications Commission, was established at a time when AT&T was the sole service provider and demand for new numbers wasn't as great.
Under the plan, AT&T divided each area code region into several regional rate centers, which provided a basis for billing.
Each rate center was then divided into three-digit exchange areas, such as 444 for Gibsonia and 344 for Mt. Lebanon and Dormont. For each exchange area, a block of 10,000 numbers was allocated.
With the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in 1996, demand for new numbers increased. Newcomers providing basic telephone, cellular phone and Internet service sought to compete by offering service within the existing rate centers.
Because numbers were allocated in blocks of 10,000, a new provider would be allocated numbers in each rate center.
Service providers would hang onto the numbers, regardless of how many were left unused.
The North American Numbering Plan Administration, which oversees area code assignments, reached a consensus with service providers to distribute 878 numbers, as the need arose, in the 724 and 412 area codes.
Bruzek said the overlay was judged less inconvenient than splitting the existing area code areas geographically to add a new area code. Under that method, 'half the customers getting the new area code would have had to change their numbers,' she said.
Under the overlay plan, new customers or current customers requesting new or additional lines will be issued 878 numbers as needed. Places where there are still 724 or 412 numbers available will continue to use those area codes until those numbers are gone.
Areas experiencing more explosive growth will see the first 878 numbers, particularly Downtown Pittsburgh, Bruzek said.
With the overlay, it is possible that someone living in a 724 or 412 area could have a next-door neighbor with an 878 area code. But the cost of calling next door - and other rates - will remain the same, Bruzek said.
Since early 2000, Verizon began notifying the businesses that would be most affected by the change - automatic alarm companies, security system providers and other industries relying on pre-programmed automatic phone dialing systems.
Individual business customers were then sent letters informing them of the change and the potential need to reprint letterheads and business cards and update phone lists to include area codes.
Inserts explaining 10-digit dialing were included in each customer's phone bill. 'We were hoping that ... customers would see them, hold onto them and start to think about the change,' Bruzek said.
Newspaper advertisements, run over a two-week period last July, also attempted to drive the message home.
Bruzek said special attention is being paid to alert senior citizens to the change because they tend to use telephones less and may not have as many opportunities to familiarize themselves with the change.
Children also are a valuable contact.
Verizon has prepared coloring books to introduce elementary school students to 10-digit dialing.
As of January, Verizon had distributed 53,000 coloring books and 2,600 teachers' guides to public and private schools in southwestern Pennsylvania.
A second round of informational inserts went out during the November and December billing cycle.
Radio and television advertisements will air closer to the July 12 switch to 10-digit dialing.
| PUC to limit how many 878 numbers it gives out |
The state Public Utilities Commission will become a bit stingier when handing out telephone numbers to service providers.
It also will be asking carriers to free up telephone numbers assigned for their use, but not distributed to any customers.
Supplies of available numbers are being eroded by the practice of phone numbers being allocated to service providers in blocks of 10,000. It dates back to 1947, when AT&T was the only game in town for telephone service.
That will change with the advent of the new 878 area code throughout the region of southwestern Pennsylvania now using the 412 and 724 area codes.
Verna Edmonds, information specialist with the PUC, said measures will be taken to control the total number of phone numbers that are allocated.
'Right now we're working on conservation,' Edmonds said.
Until 2002, the North American Numbering Plan Administration will continue to allocate numbers in the 878 area code area in 10,000-number blocks to service providers. But the allocations will be limited to six blocks per month, Edmonds said.
A carrier wanting an additional block would have to wait until the following month. Edmonds said this system would continue until 2002, when it will be evaluated.
She said the monthly limits would not likely hamper any carrier growth because smaller blocks of 1,000 also will be made available.
The smaller blocks will come from a return of unused numbers by current carriers. The PUC is creating a system to get unused numbers back in circulation. 'It's a work in progress,' Edmonds said.
Telecommunications carriers are being contacted to see how many unused numbers are available for return and reuse.
Until that process is complete, Edmonds said, it would be difficult to say if the 878 area code will be a long-term fix or if another overlay or split would be needed.
'We're hoping that by what we're doing that there won't have to be another area code,' she said.
