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Public Hearings Start Today on 310 Area Code ‘Overlay’ Proposal

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Times Staff Writer

The state Public Utilities Commission will hold public hearings today and Wednesday to gauge reaction to a proposal for a new “overlay” telephone code in the Westside and South Bay areas now served exclusively by the 310 area code.

Officials say that growing telephone use -- especially cellphone use -- means that the 310 area code is rapidly running out of available numbers. The commission probably will have to decide what to do within another year or two.

An overlay would add a new code in the existing 310 area; customers with 310 numbers would keep those numbers, but many new customers in the same region would have a different area code.

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About 40 areas in the U.S. have overlays, but there are none in California.

The alternative would be to split the area geographically, with one part continuing to use 310 and the other acquiring a new area code.

That’s what happened in 1997, when the commission broke off Long Beach and southeast Los Angeles County to create the 562 area code.

In September 2000, the commission authorized another split when the need arose, with West Los Angeles, Malibu, Santa Monica and most of Inglewood remaining in 310 and Santa Catalina, San Pedro, Wilmington, Carson, Lomita, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Harbor City, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Lawndale, Gardena, Compton, the Harbor Gateway, Hawthorne and Lynwood being assigned to a new 424 area code.

Merchants, government officials, residents and phone-service providers often oppose such splits, objecting to the expense, inconvenience and confusion created by changing existing numbers.

The wireless-telephone industry also opposed overlays, but officials with Verizon Wireless, Verizon Communications, Cingular, Nextel Communications, Sprint and T-Mobile said Monday they would support a “triggered” overlay, in which a new area code would not be added onto an existing area code until numbers in the old code ran critically short.

“Customers in the 310 area code will experience the least impact from the triggered overlay,” said Susan Lipper, a spokeswoman for T-Mobile USA. “All current land line and wireless customers will keep their existing phone numbers. They won’t experience the hassle of changing stationery, business cards, signage and Yellow Page ads, and they won’t have to inform friends and family of a new phone number.”

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Today’s hearings on proposals to substitute an overlay for the split approved in 2000 will be held at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the El Segundo City Council chambers and at 6:30 p.m. at the Redondo Beach City Council chambers.

Wednesday’s hearings will be at 10 a.m. at the Malibu City Council chambers and at 7 p.m. at the Culver City Senior Center.

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