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From: cat@tygra.ddmi.com (CAT-TALK Maint. Account)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: What's the Deal With "1-313"?
Message-ID: <15639@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 21 Dec 90 21:12:18 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 901, Message 6 of 12


For about six months now, Michigan Bell has been enclosing a little
sheet with the phone bills entitled "Now's the time to start dialing
1-313", indicating their plans to require people to dial 1-313 for
toll calls instead of just "1".

Well, our local CO (DTRMINICGO, a #1 ESS) must have just implemented
this in the last day, because now whenever I forget the "313", I get a
message saying "It is neccessary to dial an area code when making this
call. Please hang up and try again". It is REALLY ANNOYING!!

Michigan Bell claims that this will somehow allow them to free up
about 1.2 million phone numbers. My question is "how"?? They aren't
creating a new area code (yet), so how does adding the 313 requirement
free up telephone numbers??


John Palmer


[Moderator's Note: I think your answer can be found in the discussion
the past several days regarding area 215. By adding 1-313 on the
front, they will be able to use 'area code look-a-like' numbers for
prefixes, i.e. 215 without actually conflicting with area codes.  PAT]