What’s up with these crazy area codes?

The North American Numbering Plan was designed to allow direct dialing of long distance telephone calls. It started with a relatively simple set of numbers. But since the huge increase in the number of phones in recent years, it has become a complicated and confusing mess.

The system provides single phone numbers for all phones in the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda, and 17 Caribbean countries. Numbers consist of 10 digits, for example, 123-456-7890, where 123 is the area code, 456 is the exchange, and 7890 is the subscriber number.

201 was the first area code introduced in New Jersey in 1951. In the 1950s, it was decided to keep the numbers simple, so they didn’t take long to dial, using the rotary phones of the day. So the middle digit was always either a 0 or a 1. At the time, it was thought that this system would be sufficient to provide area codes for all telephones well into the 21st century.

Until the late 1980s, calls were recognized as long distance if the second digit of the number being dialed was a 0 or 1, and were routed accordingly. If the second digit was not a 0 or 1, the call would be routed to a local number. This meant that a seven digit number could not have a second digit of 0 or 1, or it would be mistaken for a long distance call.

This limitation on telephone numbers was fixed when long-distance dialers were required to use a leading 1, allowing local telephone exchanges to use numbers such as 202-6789. If there was no leading 1, it would be recognized as a local number.

Around the same time, in the early 1990s, a rapid increase in demand for phone numbers began. There were two main reasons for this:

1. The widespread use of faxes, modems and mobile phones.
2. Deregulation of local telephone services.

Every time a new local telephone provider opened, a single exchange was assigned to it, thus reserving a block of 10,000 numbers. This resulted in underuse of area codes, as most of the new “Baby Bells” did not have as many subscribers.

When adding new codes, two methods were introduced:

1. Divisions. The region of an existing area code is divided into two: one maintains the old code and the other is forced to adopt a new code. For example, in 2003, the 941 area code in Southwest Florida was split from its southern region to use the new 239 area code. Residents of the new region were given one year to make the switch, and of course, change your stationery to display the new number. .
2. Overlays. A second code is added to a region that already has an area code. In this case, since the same region has more than one code, residents MUST dial 10 digits to reach ANY number. Ironically, this means that if you live in such a region, your next door neighbor might have a different area code!

Since 1996, when local number portability was introduced, things have gotten so out of hand that an area code now provides virtually no information about a phone’s location. These are just two examples drawn from my own experience here in the US Virgin Islands.

• I have a friend who moved here a few years ago from Savannah, Georgia. He brought her cell phone with him and still uses the same 912 area code he used before he moved. This means that anyone calling her from the Virgin Islands must dial a 10-digit number and, if she is using a landline, she must pay for the call.
• Two years ago, I bought a Magic Jack, which plugs into my computer and uses the Internet to make and receive phone calls. There are currently no Magic Jack phone numbers available in the Virgin Islands, so my phone number has a 540 area code, which is supposed to be in Culpeper, VA. Not only is this confusing: a friend asked me, when did I move to Virginia? – but local people who use a landline have to pay to call me.

So who do we blame for this monstrous system and what can we do about it? I don’t think there is anyone specifically that caused this to happen. It was almost impossible to predict the future of telecommunications when the system was initially established.

And at this late stage, I don’t think anything can be done to clean it up. One good thing though… We no longer have to wait for a rotary phone dial to click every time a number is entered.