THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601060226
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
``My number is area code 804, uh, I mean 757 . . .''
Yes, Southeastern Virginia, it's our new area code. 757.
It glides off the tongue like a Boeing passenger jet lifting off a runway. 757.
Starting sometime in the second half of the year, that's what people in South Hampton Roads, the Peninsula and the Eastern Shore will have to start using. Richmond and the rest of central Virginia get to keep good old 804.
Telephone companies said last month that they needed to split the 804 region because the proliferation of fax machines, cellular phones, pagers and modems has increased the demand for new phone numbers. They announced the new code number Friday.
While it may seem peculiar at first, Southeastern Virginia residents may have won the numeral-soup lottery.
Other locales across the nation have gotten stuck with awkward combinations of numbers like Roanoke's 540, 630 (parts of Chicago) and 281 (parts of Houston).
But we get 757. It's easy. Its first and third numerals are the same.
It's Boeing's latest jetliner.
That should be easy to recall.
``Normally, you'd be concerned about getting a new number, but I like this, it will be easy to remember,'' said Jack Hornbeck, president and chief executive of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. ``It sort of connotes what we want to be, fast-moving, high-flying.
``Now I have the visual image of a jet,'' Hornbeck said.
The number was selected by Bell Atlantic, GTE-Virginia and other local phone companies in the 804 service area from numbers provided by Bell Communications Research Inc. in New Jersey. Bellcore, as the Baby Bells' research arm is known, administers the area code system.
While the phone companies still aren't close to running out of phone numbers, they are running out of exchanges, the first three digits of seven-digit phone numbers, said Paul Miller, Bell Atlantic's spokesman.
There are only 130 exchanges unused in the current 804 region, compared to 198 a year ago and 370 10 years ago, Miller said.
An exchange, which can contain 10,000 numbers, typically is assigned to a locality and cannot be moved to an area where there is more demand, he said. New paging companies and mobile phone firms also are clamoring for their own exchanges. And as Virginia opens local phone service to competition, even more exchanges will be needed.
How quickly we get the new area code depends on how quickly the remaining three-digit exchanges are used up.
``We're looking at September,'' Miller said. ``But if we have the need, we may have to use it as soon as July.''
There will be a grace period after 757 is installed, during which calls will be completed using either 804 or 757.
The grace period could last as long as six months as it did in Western Virginia, when the 540 area code was installed in July, Miller said.
Many of us recently have experienced area code switches for friends or relatives living in areas with similar exchange-shortage problems. U.S. phone companies have placed or applied for more than 20 new area codes since the start of 1995.
``I've got friends all over the state and country and now I've got to contact them all,'' said Cara Graves of Virginia Beach. ``It's just a hassle.''
Graves thinks it's silly to change area codes in the first place. She said it makes more sense to give the cellular phone and pager users the new area code because they aren't as likely to be making and receiving long-distance calls.
Those alternate carriers generally don't like that idea, however, because they think it makes it more difficult for them to lure customers to sign up for their services.
For businesses, a new code means having to reprint stationery and business cards and reprogram computers and autodialing systems. It should be a boon for local print shops.
Hampton Roads went through this once before. In 1972, the region and the rest of what currently makes up the 804 code area 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.
This also won't be the last time Hampton Roads has to go through this. Another split could come as soon as 2008 as the need for phone numbers continues to grow. ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic on page A1 by John Corbitt, The Virginian-Pilot
New Area Code: 757
Color graphic
KEYWORDS: TELEPHONE SERVICE AREA CODE by CNB