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From: sba8_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Scott Barnes)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 215 Area Code Loses "1" per Newspaper 'Reporter'
Message-ID: <15537@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 90 05:02:28 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 893, Message 2 of 8


> [Moderator's Note: Dear Puzzled -- so am I. If there was ever a
> dumber article in the papers I have not seen it, except possibly the
> stuff Joe Abernathy writes about the Internet. Talk about misleading
> and false information!  I wonder how she could have gotten so mixed up
> in her report? Assuming that it was a 'typographical error' (ha ha,
> blame it on printer's deviltries!) I guess what she was trying to say
> was that '1' would be required henceforth in order that area codes
> could be used as prefixes. I guess ??  Hopefully the paper will run a

Sorry, Pat, but I believe the newspaper reporter was correct.  Allow
me to quote from an article that appeared here in the Digest three
months ago (Volume 10, Issue 685):

> The {Philadelphia Daily News} reports on Sept. 18 (and Bell of PA's
> Newsline confirms today) that 1+ will be prohibited within 215 after
> May 20, 1991.  You all know the rest of the story - running out of
> prefixes, needing to use prefixes that look like area codes,
> forestalling the introduction of a new area code.  And, of course,
> after 5/20/91 we won't know if we're making a toll call within 215 or
> not.

I have heard from a different source that Bell of PA intends to
implement exchange codes of the type "XXX", so that exchanges such as
131 will now be possible.  It is certainly not a case where 1+ dialing
is being more stringently enforced.


Scott Barnes
sba8_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu


[Moderator's Note: Where the problem comes up is that for many of us,
we never used one plus at all until the need for additional prefixes
came up, then we had to start using it on long distance calls in order
that area code number combinations could be used as local prefix
number combinations. Think of it that way and see how dumb it sounds
to say 'forbidding the use of 1' rather than 'you must now use 1'.   PAT]