THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150042
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Jennifer Dziura
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
WHEN AMERICANS DON'T think they're getting enough attention, they often say they feel like ``just a number.'' Novels portraying the future gone wrong often reflect our abhorrence of being numbered by dubbing protagonists ``D-503'' or ``Equality 7-2521.''
But although we just want to be plain old non-numbered Bill Smith, we seem to get numbered quite often.
First, there's your Social Security number. Then, the public school system issues you a student identification number. If you join the military, Columbia House or the Sophocles fan club, you get another. If you're a high school student and you take an Advanced Placement test, you not only get assigned a number, but you get a whole sheet of stickers emblazoned with your own personal bar code. Finally, there's your phone number.
It seems, however, that those who number us are not content even with that. The next bit of evil perpetrated upon us, the residents of ``greater Hampton Roads,'' is that our area code, the taken-for-granted 804, is to be seized from us.
The corporate executives in charge of major telecommunication companies have determined that, since people are demanding more phone numbers for their pagers, computers and cellular phones, we will soon run out of 804 numbers. Thus, 804 has been split; our new area code should be announced in the next two months.
Now, I grant that we may be running out of 804 numbers. This, however, is due to bad planning. There are so many available area codes that they didn't have to assign so few.
Third-grade arithmetic tells us that, if we use all possible area codes (from 000 to 999) and all possible phone numbers (from 000-0000 to 999-9999), we will have 10 billion phone numbers - about 10 for everybody in China.
Of course, we can't use all 10 billion. The 911 (emergency assistance) and (411 directory assistance) combinations are already taken and cannot be area codes. If 411 was the prefix to your phone number, every time your friend or coworker Bill Smith tried to call you, the operator would pick up before he finished dialing and say ``What city, please?''
Also, it seems that 555 is a prefix relegated to the movie industry - it always turns up in movies. The the 800 code is reserved for toll-free numbers, and the 900 code is reserved mostly for marketing scams, psychics and obscene services.
The 000s through 099s are out as prefixes, because the operator would pick up after the first digit and the chance of misdialing (or just forgetting the long-distance ``1'') means they're out as area codes as well. The 100s through 199s can't be prefixes, because every time Bill Smith tried to dial a local number beginning with ``one,'' the phone company would assume his call was intended to be long-distance and just wait silently for more numbers.
Finally, you can't assign people numbers involving 666. They just don't seem to like it.
So that leaves 895 possible area codes, 796 possible prefixes and 10,000 possible suffixes. That's 7,124,200,000 phone numbers - or about 27 phone lines for every American, including newborn babies and the Amish.
Assuming each of these people has two business lines, one home phone, a pager, a business computer, a home computer, a business fax machine, a home fax machine and a cellular phone, which they don't, that still leaves about 4.8 billion unassigned phone numbers. Thus, there was really no need to go and put so many people in 804 to begin with.
And, since we have all these phone numbers to spare, you needn't worry about being ``just a number.'' As an American, you can be 27 numbers if you want. MEMO: Jennifer Dziura is a senior at Cox High School. Her column appears
bimonthly. If you'd like to comment on her column, call INFOLINE at
640-5555 and enter category 6778 or write to her at 4565 Virginia Beach
Blvd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23462
by CNB