Burbank, Glendale Lose Latest Round in Area Code Dispute

The cities of Burbank and Glendale lost another legal challenge Friday in their effort to avoid being put into a new telephone area code.

The state Public Utilities Commission rejected their request to allow existing phone customers to keep their 818 area code and put only new phone numbers into the forthcoming 626 area code.

Because of a surge in telephone use--from pagers and fax machines to cellular phones--the 818 region is quickly running out of new phone numbers. An industry group has recommended shifting the eastern boundary of the 818 area to run through Burbank, with the new 626 area code covering eastern Burbank, Glendale and running eastward into the San Gabriel Valley.

The Federal Communications Commission has set a December 1997 deadline for Los Angeles-area phone companies to put into service a more sophisticated technology called “permanent number portability,” which will allow customers to change local telephone companies without losing their old phone numbers.

This technology would also allow “overlays,” putting a new area code for new customers atop an existing area code, instead of relying on a conventional geographic split requiring all numbers in a given area to use the same code.

But Pacific Bell and GTE cannot have “number portability” in use by the time the 626 code goes into effect next June, so the PUC rejected the Burbank-Glendale request, said PUC spokeswoman Kyle DeVine.

This is not the final step in the legal campaign by the two cities to remain within the 818 area code, which will continue to apply to the rest of the San Fernando Valley.

Next week an administrative law judge is expected to rule on a separate complaint that would allow Burbank and Glendale to remain in the 818 area code by shifting farther east the borderline for the new 626 area code.

After the judge’s ruling, the PUC will make a final decision on the 818/626 area code split by the end of this year.