New Rules May Slow the Boom in Area Codes

The explosion of new area codes will slow dramatically in California and nationwide because of new state and federal policies aimed at forcing phone companies to use hundreds of millions of unissued phone numbers.

Consumers and businesses have grown increasingly frustrated by the expense and disruption of adopting new area codes. California has been hardest hit by their proliferation--with 25 area codes statewide, up from 13 in 1997.

California’s Public Utilities Commission said in a report released Thursday that emergency measures being implemented will free up about 1 million unused phone numbers in the region covered by the 310 area code--enough to further delay the introduction of a new area code for West Los Angeles and scores of communities in the South Bay and Orange County.

Citing the results of a report on phone usage in the 310 area code, Gov. Gray Davis called for a statewide inventory of available phone numbers and declared that no new codes should be introduced without “evidence of a true shortage.”

More relief is on the way. The Federal Communications Commission today is expected to change the way phone numbers are issued on a national scale, a move that will save millions of numbers from sitting idle at phone companies that need just a few hundred phone numbers in a given region. Under the change, phone carriers can receive new numbers in blocks of 1,000, instead of 10,000 under the current system.

The FCC’s expected action comes in the wake of recent steps by California, Florida and nearly a dozen other states to crack down on the proliferation of area codes out of concern that the burgeoning telephone industry is warehousing a vast reservoir of numbers. In some cases, regulators believed that telephone companies were asking for many more numbers than they needed and were holding them as a hedge against possible future shortages.

Together, the new state and federal commitments to eliminate the stockpiling of phone numbers will further slow the introduction of new codes statewide, including ones in regions served by 310, 818, 909, 925, 562, 323, 916 and part of the 619.

The regulatory edicts represent victories for businesses and residents within 310, who led a grass-roots uprising that was heard from San Francisco to Washington.

Faced with a new “overlay” area code that would force callers to dial 11 digits for every call, affected communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties fought back, arguing that the more efficient use of phone numbers would eliminate the need for the planned 424 code.

The public backlash, along with tough new area code legislation from state Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), persuaded the PUC to reverse plans for the new code in 310 and to reconsider plans for at least 10 other area codes statewide.

Pacific Bell, California’s largest local phone company, said it applauds the progress by state and federal regulators. “We support number conservation, and we’ve done everything that was asked of us and more,” said spokesman John Britton.

Although regulators have been studying number conservation measures for more than a year, progress had been slow until regulators and phone companies felt the wrath of lawmakers and residents.

“This was consumers and the public saying there’s got to be a better way,” said Charles Carbone of the Utility Consumers Action Network, a San Diego-based consumer group that has backed area code policy reforms.

Demand for phone numbers clearly has played a role in the onslaught of new area codes, especially given the rise in the use of cell phones, pagers, fax machines and other devices that use phone numbers.

But by far the biggest culprit has been the telecommunications industry, which has long used a system of doling out phone numbers in blocks of 10,000--which is roughly the maximum number of lines that can be used out of each three-digit phone prefix.

That practice, along with technical limitations that prevent companies from sharing numbers, meant that a phone company wanting to serve the entire 310 region, for example, would have to request a block of 10,000 numbers even if the firm had customers for just a fraction of the phone numbers.

The numbering problem was made worse when hundreds of new phone companies came to California in the mid-1990s to win a piece of its lucrative phone market.

Under a waiver from the FCC, phone companies in the 310 region will issue phone numbers in blocks of 1,000 starting this weekend. According to the PUC report, the state will have at least 1 million numbers available for issue to phone companies.

If other number-saving measures are enacted by the state, there could be nearly 3 million numbers made available for use in 310. Similar plans are underway for other area codes in California.

“Now we know 310 will last longer than we thought, but we don’t know how much longer,” said state PUC Commissioner Loretta Lynch. “Today we found out we have significantly more supply [of numbers] than we thought, and now we also need better data for the demand side of the equation.”

The FCC, meanwhile, is expected to make that policy official nationwide by ordering NeuStar Inc., which doles out phone numbers on behalf of the industry, to allocate new phone numbers in units of 1,000 rather than the traditional block of 10,000 numbers.

Of the more than 2.4 billion possible phone numbers created by the more than 300 area codes nationwide, more than half a billion are not actively used because of the 10,000-block issue and other inefficient numbering policies, according to Lee Selwyn, a Boston consultant.

The FCC is expected to exempt wireless carriers from the new rule, a move that critics say will drastically reduce the effectiveness of number conservation because wireless carriers are adding more than 1,400 subscribers an hour.

If approved, the FCC rules likely will not take effect until spring. Some wireline carriers, primarily in rural areas, may be granted exemptions to the rule because they still have older switches that cannot discriminate among local telephone numbers in units of less than 10,000.