THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9606290212
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 50 lines
Be prepared: Start telling everybody who'll be calling you long distance to change your area code to 757 in their address books and in their speed dialers.
Wait a minute, you telephone guys.
Starting Monday, the phone companies have been saying, the new 757 area code kicks in for long-distance calls to and within Hampton Roads, the Eastern Shore and portions of several western Tidewater counties.
It was to mark the beginning of a seven-month grace period in which long-distance callers could use either 757 or good old 804.
But truth be known, 757 is already here.
Quietly over the past couple months, Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp. have been reprogramming the computers that control the local phone-switching network. They put the final touches on the changeover this week, avoiding last-minute overtime this weekend to get 757 in place.
``We're ready,'' Hank Kofron, manager of Bell Atlantic's eastern Virginia network operations, declared Friday.
He said he couldn't speak for every other phone company in the country. But he guessed that most of them reprogrammed their computers this week so people in their area codes can already dial 757, too.
Let's hope they don't forget. With so many numbers being gobbled up for cell phones, pagers, faxes and computers, the 804 code is just about out of new exchanges to handle the proliferation of numbers.
So 804 was divided and the new code created. It will become mandatory Feb. 1, 1997, for long-distance calls to roughly 800,000 numbers.
That includes every phone in the following localities: Accomack County, Chesapeake, Franklin, Hampton, Isle of Wight County, James City County, Newport News, Norfolk, Northampton County, Poquoson, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg and York County.
New Kent, Prince George, Southampton, Surry and Sussex counties will be partly in 757 and partly in 804.
And who'll keep 804?
Two counties in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, Gloucester and Mathews, plus all of central Virginia. That includes Richmond, Petersburg, Charlottesville and Lynchburg.
For the most part, Hampton Roads residents seem to be taking the area-code shuffle in stride.
``To you tell you the truth, I haven't thought much about it. When's it happening?'' asked Isabelle Lasting of Norfolk when called Friday afternoon. ``I guess if they have to make the change, they'll make the change. And I'll go along with it. What else can you do?'' by CNB