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From: gdias@ucdavis.edu (Gihan Dias)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 215 Area Code Loses "1" per Newspaper 'Reporter'
Message-ID: <15536@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 90 22:13:25 GMT
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Reply-To: Gihan Dias <muztag!dias@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 893, Message 1 of 8


In article <15527@accuvax.nwu.edu> bill@eedsp.gatech.edu writes:

>   Beginning Jan. 14, customers in the 215 dialing area -- which
>includes Philadelphia and its suburbs, Reading, and Allentown -- will
>no longer have to dial a "1" before dialing a long-distance number in
>that area.

>The elimination of the digit will allow Bell to squeeze another 1.6
>million new telephone numbers in to the growing area, said Bell
>spokesman Tom Duddy.

>I've heard of ADDING a "1" to dialing in order to create more NXX
>possibilities, but ELIMINATING it to create more numbers?  How can
>this be?

>    Not long ago, Southern Bell started to require 1 + 404 for
>long-distance calls within the same area code.  This allowed them to
>use NXX prefixes which were once "area codes" (i.e. 607, 415...).
>They were able to get many thousands more numbers.  But taking the "1"
>out????

What's the problem here? It sounds like what most area codes have to
go through before introducing NXX prefixes.

For example, when I was in 805-land a few years ago, local calls were
seven-digit, long distance calls within the area code were 1 + 7-digit
and LD calls outside the area code were 1 + 10 digit.

Then GTE (and I presume PacBell) changed the rules so that long
distance calls within the area code were no longer preceeded by 1 but
consisted of just the seven digits. This seems to be exactly what is
happening in 215 now.

I assume that this was to allow N [01] X prefixes in the area code to
be distinguished from area codes. If a dialled number begins with a 1
then the switch expects 10 more digits, and if it begins with 2-9 then
it expects seven more digits for either a local call or a LD call
within the area code.

The main loss is to subscribers, since now we can no longer
distinguish a long distance call within the area code from a local
call.


Gihan