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From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Washington State Running Low
Message-ID: <11811@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Sep 90 06:05:48 GMT
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Reply-To: Randal Schwartz <merlyn@iwarp.intel.com>
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 624, Message 8 of 13


In article <11746@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wybbs!ken@sharkey (Ken Jongsma)
writes:

| This week's issue of {Communications Week} as an interesting blurb
| entitled "Area Codes Near Exhaustion." In addition to mentioning the
| forthcoming 917 code assigned to New York City, they mention that US
| West  "is studying the possibility of restructuring dialing patterns
| so that additional prefixes become available." [in Washington state]

| Good grief! Well, let's see. That could mean just about anything now,
| couldn't it?

Oh, it's probably pretty simple.  We use 1+ to indicate long distance
around here (assuming our neighbors up north use the same phone
calling scheme as we do).  It'd probably just be a transition to using
1+ to indicate an area code instead.

[small segue now that I have your attention...]

But for those of you that have already made that transition, how does
that work on toll-restricting phones, like PBXs that block long
distance calls?  I mean, right now, I know that if I dial 635-nnnn
(Lake Oswego) from here, I get an intercept, because it's long
distance, so I have to redial 1-635-nnnn to get through.  It makes me
think twice.  I cannot imagine just picking up the phone, and dialing
some random unfamiliar seven-digit number, and having to pay long
distance charges on it instead just because I didn't know.  (My 1-
calls are *much* shorter than my free local calls, and I like the
added warning that the 1- provides.)

Actually, let me guess.  Are we one of the last few areas that still
has free local calls?  (If that sounds weird to you, *not* having free
local calls sounds weird to me. :-) Has the rest of the world gone to
these "message units" that I keep hearing y'all squawk about?

Enough digression.  I'm presuming that's what they were talking
about...  transitioning the 1+ from "long-distance" flag to
"area-code" flag, and thus freeing up [2-9][01][0-9] for local
exchange codes.

Just another local phone caller,


Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III
merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn