Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 28, 1995 TAG: 9503280054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Telephone users will have to start learning that pesky new Virginia area code sooner than they were told.
Bell Atlantic Corp. said Monday it was moving up by six months the date telephone customers must start using the new 540 area code for Western Virginia. Use of the new code will become mandatory Jan. 27, 1996.
The rapid depletion of the remaining phone numbers available in the 703 area code forced the company to change the date.
"We've got to free 'em up sooner than expected," said Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller, referring to the additional phone numbers that will be made available by switching to the new code.
The advance of the mandatory date will not change the first day the code can be used: July 15.
Bell Atlantic had planned to let phone customers use either the 703 or 540 area code for a year, giving them time to get used to the new number. That period of adjustment that has been cut to six months.
Each area code contains 792 possible exchange codes, which are the first three digits of a local phone number. Each exchange code can accommodate 10,000 phone numbers. The phone company's urgency is because only about 50 of the exchange codes in the 703 area code remain unused.
Bell Atlantic says the popularity of fax machines, pagers and cellular phones has contributed to the growing consumption of phone numbers. The company is the administrator in Virginia for the North America Number Plan, which controls the release of new area codes.
After the mandatory changeover in January, the 703 area code will be used only for a portion of Northern Virginia around Washington, D.C. The new 540 code will be used for Western Virginia from Lee County to Frederick County.
Assigning a new code to the state will double the number of phone numbers available in both regions, Bell Atlantic said.
The 703 area code is not the only one under strain. Bell Atlantic said growth in the 804 code used in central and eastern Virginia will require a new code in that part of the state by 1998.
New area codes have caused problems in other parts of the country for business customers whose old in-house telephone switching equipment could not recognize them. The new codes don't have a zero or one as their middle digit, as in the older area codes.
Miller said Bell Atlantic will contact all of its business customers by mail to advise them to check with their telephone equipment vendors to determine if they will have a problem.
The older equipment can be modified to accommodate the new area codes, Miller said. But in some cases, equipment may have to be replaced entirely, said Jeff Nichols, director of market planning and promotions for BellSouth Communications Systems Inc. in Roanoke. BellSouth Communications installs and services larger business phone systems in the Southeastern United States.
Newer phone systems may require only a little programming change to make the new code work, Nichols said. Older systems might need upgrades to both software and computer hardware, he said.
However, some systems are so old that they can't work with the new software, he said. They might require a complete replacement.
BellSouth has been telling its customers since the middle of last year about the implications of the coming area code change, Nichols said, and moving up the date for mandatory use doesn't put any time pressure on his company.
BellSouth no longer serves customers in Virginia; last year it sold all of its business lying outside of the Southeastern service area of its parent, BellSouth Corp. of Atlanta, to WilTel Communications Systems Inc. of Houston, Texas. The area code change will still affect BellSouth's customers in the Southeast who try to call into Virginia, Nichols said.
by CNB