661 Area Code Added to Meet Increased Demand
A new area code--California’s 24th--will today begin serving the northern part of Los Angeles County and other regions, an area that includes Lancaster, Newhall and Palmdale.
The 661 area code is needed to meet the surging demand for additional telephone numbers in the 805 area code. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the change in November 1997.
“Basically, more people are carrying wireless phones and pagers and having second lines put in at homes for modems,” said Alison Costa, a spokeswoman for the California-Nevada Code Administration, a telecommunications industry group.
Costa said increased competition among local telephone service companies, which require blocks of telephone numbers when they enter the market, is also fueling the demand for new numbers.
The 805 area code serves Kern County and parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, Kings, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Tulare counties. The 661 code will serve most of Kern County, the northern part of Los Angeles County and small portions of the other counties.
For the next six months, callers outside the area can dial either the old or new area code to reach affected customers. Customers within the region can dial between the 805 and 661 zones without using an area code during this period.
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