It must mean that we're busy communicating, which is generally a good thing! All over the country, the public phone system is running out of numbers in the existing telephone exchanges and, therefore, new ones must be added. If you live in an area presently covered by the 760 area code you're going to have to do a little more button pusing for local calls!

First it was fax machines. Next it was modems for early Internet access. Now it's cell phones. Even though most people today are using broadband Internet access and have forsaken the modems, the number of numbers needed keeps going up. To keep up, either a geographical area has to be split up with one part keeping the old area code and the other getting a new area code, OR, a new area code must be added to the same geographical area as an old one. This latter method is called an overlay because you can think of it as a piece of clear plastic having been overlain on a map, with the old area code underneath and the new one on top.

A Little History
In the past splits have been the norm. Did you know that all of Southern California originally had 213 as its area code (it was one of the original US area codes from 1947)? It was split in 1951 so that all of So. Cal except LA had 714. In 1982, 714 was split so that San Diego, Imperial, and parts of other counties to the north got 619 and 714 stayed with Orange County. In 1997-1999, 619 was split so that (roughly) Mission Valley-and-south kept 619, the north part of The City and some contiguous towns got 858, and the rest of the old 619 a/c got 760. http://www.area-codes.com/area-code-history.asp  From a single Southern California area code in 1947 to at least 19 today, each allowing for roughly 8 million unique numbers, we've been ordering a lot of phone numbers!

The Pros and Cons
SPLIT: Originally, the San Diego County section of the 760 area, shown here, was going to be given the new 442 area code. An advantage of this approach is that people calling neighbors and businesses in the same area code only have to dial 7 digits. The downside is that businesses having billboards, phone numbers on vehicles, stationery, etc. must pay to change this all. The folks at Keep760.org, aided by UCAN's Michael Shames, felt this was costly. They got the PUC to change to an overlay.

OVERLAY: With an overlay, you simply have 2 areas codes in the same geographical area. It wasn't possible to do this until the 1990's. So, businesses with 760 stationery can keep it. A new business, perhaps right next-door to that one might, after November 21, 2009, be issued a 442 area code phone number. The down side - and it isn't much of one - is that a person in (e.g.) Oceanside, having a 760 phone number, will have to dial 1-760-555-0100 to ring their next door neighbor. That's 11 digits vs 7. This is necessary because the local phone switching equipment would not know if that neighbor was 760-555-0100 or 442-555-0100 if you simply dialed 555-0100.

Considering the facts that we're using quickly dialed touchtone phones vs the old dial phones (do young people today even know why we say to "dial" a number?) and that many people have their favorite numbers stored in memories anyway, and that many of the numbers we dial today are outside our local area code and, thus, require 11 digits ANYWAY, the overlay was clearly less of a hassle for people who would have to change things and a minimal hassle for those who will have to dial extra digits.

Still A Local Call
Many "experienced" humans equate area codes with Long Distance and thus CHARGES!!!!  Fret not, those of us who remember dialing MA5-1212! These days, long distance charges are based, truly, on distance, and not the phone number. See my posting on Phones and Zones: How AT&T bills you for calls not considered long distance which will help you understand how to know what calls you might have to pay for.

So 760-folks, just go ahead and call that friend up the street and don't worry about costs changing. You might consider editing your speed dials and contacts, though, so they all have 1 + the area code. And when 442 numbers start appearing just treat them as neighbors, too!