PUC Foresees No Split of 714 Area Code

Go ahead and order that second phone line.

A recent state analysis of telephone numbers concludes that there are still plenty of digits to go around in the 714 area code, dampening chances the area code will be split in the near future.

The analysis, conducted by the Public Utilities Commission at the direction of the state Legislature, found that about half of the possible 7.7 million telephone numbers in the 714 area remain unused.

“The data further establishes that the 714 area code possesses considerable room for growth, and thus, aggressive measures such as splits or overlays are not yet warranted,” the study concluded.

At the same time, the recent adoption of “number conservation” efforts means local demand would likely not spike sharply enough to warrant a further split of the area code in the foreseeable future.

And the report recommended the state seek Federal Communications Commission approval to free telephone prefixes from geographic areas, which it said would make for more efficient allocation of numbers. Currently, prefixes are limited to specific areas. The prefix 654, for instance, falls mainly in Irvine.

“The good news is that . . . the life of the area code has been extended,” said Natalie Billingsley, senior analyst for the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, an independent consumer advocacy arm of the PUC that was not involved in conducting the study.

Billingsley contrasted the number allocation in 714 with that in the 310 area in Los Angeles, where state regulators in February recommended that the PUC proceed with introducing the long-delayed 424 area code.

“Area 714 is not in that position yet,” Billingsley said.

The study’s findings contrast sharply with warnings three years ago that led to threats of an “overlay” in the 714 area, which would have forced users to dial 10 digits to reach local numbers.

Harsh consumer reaction to such a system in the 310 area code two years ago led regulators to scrap plans for more overlays and to order analyses of how numbers are allocated--including the report on the 714 area.

In efforts to increase available phone numbers, the PUC in July also ordered number conservation efforts, including a system known as “pooling.”

Formerly, telephone companies would use request the rights to new numbers in blocks of 10,000, even if they only needed to serve a few hundred new customers.

Under pooling, the phone companies now receive numbers in blocks of 1,000. And blocks of numbers that go unused for six months must be made available to other companies.