714/657 Area Codes
 

Beginning tomorrow (Saturday 8/23/08 AD) the 657 area code overlay is in full effect. That means that if you live in the 714 area code and you are dialing someone in the 714 area code, you must now dial the 714 area code in addition to the phone number (whereas previously you only had to dial the seven digit phone number).

Check your speed dials and get used to the added digits.

The low down on the details.

I don't understand why we don't just go to an 8-digit phone number like France does. What's with all the stupid extra area codes when we could just add a zero on the end of all existing numbers and multiply the number of available numbers in every existing area code.

Because anything France does (with the possible exception of wine and bike races) is stupid.

But I think a wiser way to go at this point would be to make every phone number a 10 digit number (making the area code a permanent, non-optional part of every number) and work from there.

Thank God I don't work for the phone company anymore.

Which is essentially what they're doing with these overlays. They're just doing it gradually.

Because 1-800-FLOWERS0 looks stupid.

Plus, there are still around 600 area codes that are unused. That's ~500,000,000 phone numbers, enough for every single individual in this country to get yet another phone and still have a couple hundred unused numbers. Why change the whole system?

Because 10 numbers is more than 8.

I agree. I know a change such as this has to take place gradually.

A habit I got into a long time ago when programming a speed dial number was to always include the area code. That way, when things lime this come up, it ain't no big thing.

You're saying drop area codes all together and JUST use 8 numbers? That would REDUCE the number of available phone numbers. With the area codes currently in use there are ~3.5 billion available phone numbers. 8 digits would be fewer than 100 million phone numbers, not even enough for 1/3 of our population to have their own number (France has a population of only about 65 million).

ETA - oops, decimal error in my post prior to this. The 600 unused area codes is about 5 billion, not 500 million unused numbers. Even less reason to start messing with the number of digits in a phone number. You want to have a pool of available numbers that's vastly larger than what you'll actually use so that you can keep the numbers that are assigned relatively distinct from each other to avoid confusion.

A LOT fewer: eight digits would be 10 million (10,000,000). Dropping all numbers starting with "0" and "1" (you can't [under our current system] have those as the first number of a phone number) and you're down to 8 million.

GD: Not saying drop area codes, just stop adding so many. Go to an 8-digit regular phone number so that people don't have to dial the area code in their own area. Because now, people in Anaheim have to dial 10 digits every time they call. Then they only have to care about the extra digit when dialing outside their area, in which case they're probably not trying to memorize the number anyway.

It makes more sense to me to keep things consistent. Dial the full 10 for everything, rather than dialing just 7 (or 8) for some numbers, but the full 10 (or 11) for others. Keep it simple.

Adding an 8th digit mean a pretty expansive (doable, but expansive) retooling of our telephone switching system that, with a few billion numbers still unused in the current system seems pointless.

There are a lot more than just those that are excluded (any number starting with 911, 411, 555, 311 come to mind, that's another 40,000 right there). But your math is off. Excluding numbers that start with 1 & 0 leaves 80 million, not 8 million. I was keeping it simple with "fewer than 100 million".

Does it really take that much longer to dial an extra 4 numbers (1+) during the times you actually dial a number?

Also, at least on our cells, if you just program in the 7 digit number and you are outside your local area code the speed dial won't work.

I like the overlays much better than halving the area code and having to change your number. They did this a bunch of times when we lived in LA and you had to get business cards etc all changed. Pain in the patooey.

The big problem with changing to an 8 digit phone number (with or without area codes) is not the time it takes to dial or the quantity of phone numbers available. It is the secondary cost of every single phone number already in use having to be relearned, the cost to update every phone number listing that currently exists (from personal phone books to advertisements to business cards to the hundreds of other places phone numbers are conveyed).

If the phone company were to say "we're adding a digit to your phone number" the uproar would be huge. Governments would fall, lawsuits would be filed, widows would be left crying in the streets.

Simply requiring everybody to always dial the area code is a simple change that the phone companies can implement almost completely on their own with a minimum of collateral damage.

Sometimes I think you write this stuff just to get quoted, Alex. LOL.

You are correct. I was the mathematical idiot this time.

Yes, that is what I was referring to as the "expansive retooling".

The only reason I'm annoyed at the overlay is that at the library, we have to call people when their item holds become available. Each of us usually makes about 5 of these calls a day, and when it's our turn to process the afternoon delivery, the number can shoot up to 20 or 30. I've been adding 1714 for weeks now to prepare myself, so it's already automatic for me.

But, do you dial 1+714+number?

So 4 numbers being 1+714, right?

Yes, you need to "1" prefix.

If they went to a system that requires everyone, everywhere, to dial the area code, couldn't we drop the 1?

in the modern world anyone I really want to call is only a click or two away. Area codes have long become meaningless

I believe the "1" is the country code.

Yes, but that results in similar headaches as adding an eighth digit in terms of modifying the way existing technology accesses the system.

What's more important... Us or the machines? ;)

Us - therefore, we don't waste our lives trying to make the system do things for no reason. :) Unless you want to be the tech guy...

As a very tiny example of the impact of changing a phone number. At work we are consolidating two billing offices into one.

The budget for the secondary impacts of updating every instance where we tell customers about the closing office address/phone is $38,000 (it would be the same if just the phone number were changing). Admittedly, there are economies of scale (it would cost only a little bit more to do two office similar office closures), but you can see why we're much happier with 10-digit dialing than lengthening the base number.


(I know that this is just reiterating what I said befoer and GD said before that, but I just realized it was a great example and I was dealing with it today.)

That's just it. The machines will one day take over and rule the world! Bwa ha ha haaaa!

Something just occured to me. If we dial a phone number to anywhere outside the 714 area code, we dial the 11 digits. Inside 714 we did not. So now all we are doing is removing the exception; not adding an extra burden to our lives. I much prefer when rules are absolute. Exceptions just piss me off. A fine example is the english language. "I" before "E" EXCEPT after "C" and, and, and, ........UGGG!

Yes, the cellular phone system. Evedently the "1" is not nessisary when using a cell phone. You can use it or leave it off, either way it will go through. It's the old land lines that you must dial the "1" first.

Honestly, this is how it's been in New jersey for awhile now, and it's really no big deal. Like everything else, you get used to it. It's just 3 more numbers, after all.

I wonder if Kodiak, Alaksa, phones still work dialing just the last five digits of a phone number (the first two digits were the same for everybody on the island when I worked up there).

I find it hard to believe that anyone knows enough people in their own area code to only have to dial the seven numbers. As it is for our household we're down from 4 to 3 different area codes to cover our work, home, and cell area codes.

First thing in the morning, I screwed up and didn't dial the area code. After all that practice! *smacks forehead*

Sheesh, if that was the only dumb thing I did first thing in the morning, I'd be having a great day!

I'm not a morning person.

Plus it takes me like all of January to remember it's a new year.

As mentioned before, I use speed dial so this hardly changes a thing. And I still don't have anyone's phone number memorized.:rolleyes:

Baah! I say we scrap the antiquated number system altogether and just give eveyone an IPv6 address. I call 2008:db8::1428:ac1d

We should scrap the whole phone system and start from scratch.

Most people have free domestic long distance. Why do we need localized area codes?

Because we need more than 8 million phone numbers. As mentioned earlier, seven digit phone numbers only allow for a little less than 8 million individual numbers (eliminating all numbers starting with a 0 or a 1 as well as certain prefixes such as 911). The area codes increases the possible numbers to just under 800 million. To throw out the existing system at this point would be costly, unwieldy, and unnecessary. By integrating area codes as part of everyone's normal phone number, the system is just evolving to accommodate capacity needs.

The first three digits of a 7-digit phone number were, and for the most part still are, geographic in nature: adding an area code is just an extension of the same process.

I've had to delete the rest of my post to instead point you to this site on the history of phone numbers.

And on a completely separate note, we had a problem with the area code switch yesterday. When we moved in the location where we are now, it was supposed to be temporary. That was 17 months ago. To make it easier on our clients, we kept the same numbers, just having them forwarded to our new location. We used Cox for the service on our fax line. When they set up the forward to the new number, they just used the seven digits. Yesterday, when people tried to fax us (from either the 714 area code or if faxing from out of state), they got the recorded message of needing to dial the area code. I had to spend several minutes on the phone with the Cox representative to get him to understand the problem: he was unaware that you had to dial the area code even though the call was being forwarded within the same area code. :rolleyes:

That's a little under 8 billion, actually. If each area code has just under 8 million, and there are ~1000 possible area codes (000-999, give or take due to reserved digits), then ~8 million * ~1000 = ~8 billion.

Now, theoretically we could dispense with the entire concept of the area code being a separate part of the number assigned geographically and just view it as a 10 digit phone number, but there are a host of reasons why it makes sense to continue the practice.

First and foremost is technical efficiency. The area code allows the telephone switching system to very quickly and efficiently route phone calls where they need to go. While today's digital infrastructure would make it possible to de-localize the numbers, it just makes sense to take advantage of the efficiency that localizing them offers. Similarly, the task of managing and assigning numbers is greatly eased by grouping them geographically. It's also a nice advantage to be able to glance at a phone number and get at least a general idea of where the owner of that number might be located. If not for long distance charge reasosn, simply because you want to know if, say, the business you're calling is nearby or in the next town over, or across the country.

Basically, there are several efficiencies gaiend by keeping phone numbers grouped geographically by an area code, and no real advantage to ending that practice.

Man, I am just sucking out loud at math lately.

Oy

Kinda what I was trying to get at, but you 'splained it better.