310 Added to 213 Equals Confusion : Phones: 2.3 million customers will get a new area code beginning next month. Cities and businesses are scrambling to prepare for the change.
You live in Hollywood, area code 213. You work in Pasadena, area code 818. Several of your clients are based in Ventura County, area code 805. And your mother lives in San Diego, area code 619. Your significant other works in Orange County, area code 714.
But don’t despair. Things are about to get worse.
As of Nov. 2, 2.4 million telephone customers in the 213 area code are going to break off to become part of a new 310 area code. Coastal cities from Malibu to Long Beach will adopt what is about to become the fifth area code in greater Los Angeles.
Soon, you will be able to boast that you live in the part of the nation with the most cars, the most smog and the most area codes.
“Five--that’s the highest concentration of area codes anywhere in the country,” Dan Smith, spokesman for GTE California, said cheerfully. “All of New York state has eight.”
The new 310 zone will stretch east to Century City, Compton and Whittier.
Indeed, about all that will be left of the 213 area is Hollywood, central Los Angeles, Montebello and Maywood.
With the change less than a month away, Culver City’s City Hall is scrambling to standardize all its forms and business cards before investing in large supplies with 310 on them. UCLA, which orders about 200 sets of business cards a week, is bracing for that number to double. Businesses will have to reprogram their telephone systems, advertise new fax numbers, fix letterheads and reset home computers and speed-dial buttons.
For some businesses, the changes pose a more serious problem. The slick lifestyle magazine ‘Beverly Hills (213)’ will soon represent a mismatch of area code and city. Publisher Seth Baker admits it will be confusing, but said there is not much he can do about it.
“It’s become a trademark,” he said. “It would be very difficult for us to change. People in New York know us as ‘Beverly Hills (213).’ It would be like changing ‘The L.A. Times’ to ‘The California Times.’ ”
Some cities will be sliced in half by the new area code. In West Hollywood, for example, residents and businesses west of La Cienega Boulevard will have to dial a different area code to reach people east of the boulevard.
“Pacific Bell never thought to ask the thousands and thousands of citizens that would be affected by this,” said West Hollywood Councilwoman Abbe Land. They just went ahead and did it.”
Land joined with several other split cities and successfully pushed a bill through the state Legislature that will require Pacific Bell to get public input and study alternatives before changing area codes again. Meanwhile, Pacific Bell representatives are busy attending council meetings to reassure the public that emergency services and directory listing services will not be affected.
Beverly Hills is still fighting to take a small triangle of land east of La Cienega Boulevard into the 310 area code along with the rest of the city.
“We’re working with the telephone company to see if it can be done,” said Fred Cunningham, the city’s public affairs officer. “There is some cost involved.”
That cost could be about $350,000 for the necessary hardware changes, said Pacific Bell Los Angeles area spokesman Michael Runzler. And before any work could be done, the city would have win the approval of the state Public Utilities Commission.
GTE, Pacific Bell and the PUC explained that phone lines and city boundaries were drawn at different times and are not always compatible. Aligning them will be expensive, they argued.
The same sort of irritating divisions resulted in 1984 when part of the 213 area broke off to become 818. Lore has it that San Fernando Valley children who forgot their lunches cried when they tried to call their 213 homes from their 818 schools only to be told they had the wrong number.
“We know it’s going to be a hassle to contact relatives out of the state and business associates and inform them you have a new area code,” Smith said sympathetically. “But we’re running out of telephone numbers. I don’t want to incite a panic or anything, but we’re perilously close to running out.”
The need for new area codes in the past was caused by population spurts. But this time, technology is the phone companies’ undoing.
Fax machines, personal computers, cellular phones and the like have become so popular that it is not unusual for one person to have several phone numbers. In fact, Smith reports, there are 3 million GTE customers with 3.7 million phone numbers.
To make the change easier, the phone companies are spending millions of dollars advertising on television, billboards and inserts mailed with monthly bills. During a six-month grace period, incorrectly dialed numbers will be put through. After that, errant callers will hear a recording urging them to try again.
If 1984s 818 split is any indication, there is going to be a lot of hollering. But, as with anything else, people will adjust, said Smith.
“It’s just like the New Year’s check syndrome,” Smith said. “It takes a month before you stop writing the wrong year on your checks.”
Adjust, but don’t get comfortable.
In November, 1992, a big piece of the 714 area will split off to become 909.
310 Area Code
If a seven-digit telephone number begins with one of the prefixes below, the area code number will change from 213 to the new 310 area code on Nov. 2 (The seven-digit telephone number will remain the same.)
201-210, 212, 214-220, 246, 247, 270, 271, 273-282, 284-289, 297, 301, 302, 305, 306, 312-320, 322-338, 348, 352, 354, 355, 363, 364, 370-379, 390-399, 401-404, 406-410, 412, 414, 416, 417, 419-459, 470-479, 490-499, 510, 512-519, 521-524, 527, 529-553, 556, 559, 568, 570-578, 590-599, 601-609, 615, 616, 618, 630-635, 637-649, 652, 657, 659, 670-677, 679, 690-699, 715, 719, 761-764, 767-769, 781-785, 787, 788, 791-799, 801-804, 806, 807, 809, 812-814, 816, 820-842, 854, 855, 858-869, 886, 898, 902-908, 914, 920-929, 940-949, 967, 970, 973, 978, 980-989
If a prefix is not listed above, the area code number is not scheduled to change.
The general boundaries of the 213 area code will become La Cienega Boulevard to the west, El Segundo Boulevard to the south, the Montebello city line to the east and the 818 area code to the north.
Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Huntington Park, Vernon and Montebello are among the communities that will retain the 213 area code.
There will be a six-month period during which calls may be completed by using either the 213 or 310 area codes. After May 2, 1992, calls dialed with the incorrect area code will not be completed. Callers will reach a recording explaining the new dialing procedures.
Prefixes that are duplicated in both the 213 and 310 area codes: 520 (high volume service), 554 (weather), 555 (long-distance information), 853 (time), 950 (long-distance carrier access) and 976 (information providers).
All GTE customers in the 213 area code will change to the new 310 area code.
Sources: GTE, Pacific Bell
