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From: pf@islington-terrace.csc.ti.com (Paul Fuqua)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 215 Area Code Loses "1" per Newspaper 'Reporter'
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Date: 21 Dec 90 19:25:01 GMT
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merlyn at iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)  writes:
    
> I'm still baffled at what the "1 means long distance" people do when
> a differing area code is *not* long distance.  Do you dial the "1" or
> not?  Around here, if it's a different area code, it's definitely long
> distance.

Well, I'm a "1 means long distance" person, living in Dallas
(214-340), and the article totally confused me.  Here, to call a local
number in a different area code, one dials ten digits -- no 1+.  If
it's a long-distance number, it's always eleven digits.  (Actually, I
only know this to be true for the 214/817 boundary; I don't know what
is done about local cross-area-code calls elsewhere in the state, or
even if there are any.)

It wasn't always this way -- until a couple of years ago, certain
exchanges were reserved for "metro" service, and these numbers were
local to both Dallas and Fort Worth.  They started the ten-digit hack
to free up those exchanges for duplication along the boundary.  SWBell
printed a notice on top of every page in the phone book, listing the
affected exchanges.  Well, it listed most of them: they left out the
GTE exchanges.

Area-code-split note: A couple of months ago, there was a newspaper
article describing the 214/903 area-code split.  It contained one odd
fact: there are more than two dozen phone companies serving the area
now in 903.


Paul Fuqua                     pf@csc.ti.com, ti-csl!pf
Texas Instruments Computer Science Center, Dallas, Texas