County May Face Another Split to 805 Area Code

You’d think Ventura County was far enough from the tangle of Los Angeles to be immune to the continuous churn of area codes that has plagued phone customers there in recent years.

But the latest word from the California Public Utilities Commission is that the 805 area may be on the chopping block again, as early as March 2002.

Notice of this proposed change will appear in the mail for most area telephone customers within the next month.

No word yet on what the new area code would be or which customers would be forced to switch. Those discussions would begin in public meetings to be scheduled for next summer.

It was only last February that 805 was pared, with the creation of the 661 area code. Customers in Bakersfield, Lancaster and Palmdale were assigned the new area code.

All of Ventura County remained in 805, saving residents here from costly and time-consuming tasks, such as ordering new business cards and notifying friends, families and clients. Already, though, seven-digit combinations in the 805 area are being devoured at an incredible pace, said utilities commission spokeswoman Kyle DeVine.

The 805 area also encompasses Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Each area code can spawn 7.82 million phone numbers. That total is arrived at by multiplying the 782 possible prefixes in each area code (911, 411 and some other combinations are off limits) by the 10,000 possible combinations for the last four digits of a number, DeVine said.

More than half of 805’s numbers, or 4.62 million, have been allocated, with 462 prefixes claimed. Regulators estimate a demand for an additional 73 prefixes each year.

Although neither regulators nor spokesmen for local telephone service providers could say exactly how many residents live in the 805 area, all agree that the number of customers is nowhere near 4.62 million. Nor will there be 7.82 million customers by 2002.

So why does this problem exist?

Blame the federal government, for opening up telephone markets across the United States to increased competition--with the possibility of customer savings--in 1996. Blame the subsequent proliferation of competing local, cellular and paging service providers, as well as the popularity of ATM machines, each of which relies on a telephone line to complete transactions.

And blame yourself, if you use any of these services to save money or make life more convenient.

“It’s an unfortunate consequence of competition,” DeVine said.

The state allocates 10,000 numbers at a time to telephone service providers--be they GTE, Pacific Bell or smaller competitors. Many times, DeVine said, a company may really need only several hundred or a few thousand numbers.

As a result, millions of telephone numbers are sitting in limbo. They are not assigned to customers but not available to anyone other than the company to which they have been issued.

Statewide, regulators estimate that 180 million telephone numbers have been assigned to providers, although only about 35 million are in use by customers.

The utilities commission said there are 41 competitors for phone service in the 805 area. In L.A.’s 310 area, about 40 companies compete to provide service. In the 818 area, the state has identified 55 competitors.

For Ventura County residents dreading an area code change, there is a ray of hope.

Federal regulators earlier this month approved the use of a concept called number conservation, which would allow regulators to allocate telephone numbers in smaller blocks--most likely 1,000 at a time.

If such a system can be put in place in California before 2002, what is now area code 805 could all remain 805 for a while longer.