THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512090300
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD AND LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
Hampton Roads, your days of using the 804 area code are numbered.
A coalition of telecommunications companies announced Friday that they have decided to split the 804 calling area and assign greater Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore a new code.
The new three-number prefix should be announced within the next two months and will go into effect during the second half of 1996, said Paul Miller, a spokesman for the companies.
Rapidly increasing demand for new phone numbers - for cellular phones, pagers and computers - is the main reason for the change, industry leaders said. A plethora of new companies in local-exchange and wireless phone services will increase further the demand for new numbers in the next few years.
The split of the 804 code area will take place about a year earlier than Bell Atlantic-Virginia previously had estimated.
``This is happening all over the country,'' Miller said. ``We're running out of numbers quickly, and this is the only way to solve it.''
If a new code weren't carved out of 804, he said, phone companies could run out of numbers to give to residents and businesses within the next few years.
This won't be the last time Virginia's area codes change. Expect another division of 804 and the new Hampton Roads code by 2008, Miller said.
Hampton Roads has been through this once before. In 1972, the region and the rest of what currently makes up the 804 code had to surrender the use of 703 when that code's phone numbers came close to being exhausted.
Until that time, 703 was the only code used in Virginia. Now there are three. In July, 703 was divided again with a new 540 code area carved out for western Virginia.
A key decision facing representatives of Bell Atlantic and the other telecommunications companies who met Thursday and Friday at Bell Atlantic's Richmond office was how to divide 804.
In the end, they decided that central Virginia, including the Richmond, Lynchburg and Charlottesville metropolitan areas, will keep 804.
The reason is a bit complicated. The 804 code is currently divided into four parts. The Eastern Shore, several western Tidewater counties and all of Hampton Roads - except Gloucester and Mathews counties - make up one. Richmond, Lynchburg and Charlottesville are the cores of the other three. The boundaries between each part are key to the way calls are handled and how some regulations are structured.
The conferees decided to divide the area code along the boundaries of these sections. Putting Richmond, Lynchburg and Charlottesville into one code and Hampton Roads in another creates the closest balance between the two codes in the actual number of phone lines in use. And since Richmond, Lynchburg and Charlottesville combined will have about 25 percent more lines, Miller said, they will keep 804 because the industry representatives want to disrupt the fewest customers.
Lacy Yeatts, a spokeswoman for GTE-Virginia, which is the second-largest local phone company in Virginia behind Bell Atlantic, said the decision-making process was fair.
``The key to it, whatever area changes codes, is that people have enough notice that they can transition easily,'' Yeatts said.
If the 804 split works as planned, Hampton Roads and Eastern Shore phone users will have at least a six-month grace period during which they can use both 804 and the new code. By early 1997, however, only the new code would be usable.
Many Hampton Roads residents likely have experienced an area code change recently - that of a friend or relative living elsewhere. Since the beginning of this year, U.S. phone companies have put into effect or applied for two dozen new area codes. And for the first time, each has or will have a middle digit other than ``0'' or ``1,'' including Hampton Roads' new code.
Mary Lineberger, a Portsmouth resident, just went through the experience when her sister's area code in Jacksonville, Fla., was changed.
``It'll probably take me a while to learn it, after all these years,'' Lineberger said of the new number. ``If someone doesn't call me but about once a year, they won't know about it. That might be a problem.''
Virginia Beach resident Patricia Braidwood pointed out that the communication devices that gobbled up all the extra phone numbers - forcing a new area code - become part of the hassle. Not only will people have to be notified of a new phone number, but the dialing directories of some computer software will have to be changed and people will have to be notified of different numbers for pagers.
``It's one of those inevitable things, and as long as they give people plenty of time, it's workable, it's doable,'' she said.
Local businesses using Private Branch Exchange phone systems face the biggest adjustment with the code change. They need to ensure their systems are modified to allow calling into the new exchange.
That's because many such PBX systems were built when only area codes with ``0'' or ``1'' as middle digits were assigned.
Dividing 804 along geographic lines wasn't the only option available. Telecommunications companies also could have chosen to ``overlay'' 804 with a new code covering the entire area of the current code. Then, each time a new phone number was needed, it would be assigned to the new code.
The problem with that approach is that next-door neighbors could live in different area codes.
Cox Communications Inc., which wants to begin offering local phone services as early as next year, approves of the code's division, said Frank Bowers, Cox's Hampton Roads general manager. He said an overlay would have made it harder for his company and other would-be competitors to lure customers to switch. MEMO: Staff writer Christopher Dinsmore contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Color map of code areas
KEYWORDS: AREA CODE TELEPHONE SERVICE LONG DISTANCE PHONE SERVICE by CNB