THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701260059
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 106 lines
Virginia Beach resident Ann Harp has stickers on her telephone to remind her of Hampton Roads' approaching area-code change. But Friday, she struggled to remember.
``Is it 747 or 757?'' she asked. ``I'm still kind of messing it up.''
Harp can be forgiven. At least for another week.
But next Saturday, Feb. 1, the grace period ends. The seven-month breathing space that the telephone companies have allowed southeastern Virginia to use both 804 and 757 will be over.
So learn to love it - or at least learn it. Area code 757 soon will be the only one we have.
For the most part, Hampton Roads and the rest of the 757 region appear ready.
Bell Atlantic-Virginia spokesman Paul Miller said his company recently surveyed local customers about the pending change. About 95 percent know the new code, he says.
The rest of the nation is another story. It will take some time for people in Poughkeepsie and Peoria to catch up to the change.
Fortunately, if friends and relatives in those places try to call you, they'll get a second chance when they misdial. Both Bell Atlantic and GTE, the other local phone company, say they'll use a recording telling errant callers to hang up and try their numbers again using 757. That message will continue for a year.
The phone companies expect some problems. Businesses elsewhere with ancient phone systems will have problems if they haven't reprogrammed them to allow calls to the new code. So-called Private Branch Exchange systems - PBXs, for short - originally would only process long-distance calls to area codes with ``0'' or ``1'' as their middle digit.
Another potential problem: rural mom-and-pop phone companies. Sometimes they miss deadlines for reprogramming their switches to allow calls into new codes.
But Hampton Roads organizations that receive calls from all over the country say they expect few troubles.
``I haven't heard of any problems for two or three months,'' said Paul Flanagan, vice president for information services for Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach. CBN has been telling viewers of its ``700 Club'' TV program to call it using 757 since last July, Flanagan said.
John A. Hornbeck Jr., president of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber, too, has been using 757 for many months - with no problems. He said he hasn't heard a single complaint from a chamber member about the new code.
``It does not seem to be creating the kind of challenge you might think that it would,'' he said.
Hornbeck credited local phone companies for what appears to be a smooth transition. He said the seven-month dual-code grace period helped. So did the phone companies' extensive advertisements and billing notices about the change, he said.
It helps that the number is relatively easy to remember, Hornbeck said. Just about any of the dozens of new codes created in the past several years in the United States - from 941 in Florida to 281 in Texas - have a clunkier ring.
As in Hampton Roads, the new codes were needed because of the explosion in demand for telephone lines. More and more people carry pagers and cellular phones and use computers and fax machines. That eats up phone numbers.
People in Northern and western Virginia have been through the drill. Their 703 code was divided a year ago. The upper tip of Northern Virginia, next to Washington, kept 703. The rest of the old 703 area adopted 540. Now, Bell Atlantic says 703 is getting crowded again. It wants to add another code in Northern Virginia as early as 1999.
Bell Atlantic's Miller said 757 will need to be divided again, possibly as early as 2006. The same for the old 804, which Richmond, Lynchburg and Charlottesville and the rest of central Virginia will keep.
The exact dates of the next code divisions will depend on how fast the population grows and how many new number-gobbling telephone devices are used, Miller said.
But he added, ``it's inevitable.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color map by ROBERT D. VOROS, The Virginian-Pilot
Virginia's Realigned Area Codes
Photo by VICKI CRONIS, The Virginian-Pilot
A Bell Atlantic billboard advertisement reminds folks traveling on
Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk that the seven-month breathing space
the telephone companies have allowed for using both 804 and 757 will
be over Feb. 1.
Graphic
NOT READY FOR 757?\ Here's a checklist of things to make the
change go smoothly.
Reprogram 757 into your phone services and equipment:
Computer modems
Speed dialers
Fax machines
Cellular phones
Call Forwarding
Call Block
Change printed materials:
Business cards
Stationery
Checks
You may also need to change:
Recorded messages
Signature files on e-mail messages
Computer dialing directories
Pager messages
KEYWORDS: AREA CODE