Last Day, No Overlay: 760 Subscribers Must Dial The Whole Deal
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!
Communications: Communications Technology - Landline -
Tags: telephones - telephone numbering plan - NPA - long distance - area codes - 760 area code - 760 - 442 overlay - 442 area code - 442 -
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7 digits vs 10 digits
Some phones have a feature where you store your area code. Then whenever that phone sees that area code at the beginning of the callerid digits it truncates the area code and the "1" just leaving the 7 digit local number. This was done so that you can hit redial and it will dial only the 7 digits. That is what you need in areas that do not have 10-digit dialing. In fact in those areas, the switch will reject a 10-digit dial for a local call. BUT, in areas that have mandatory 10-digit dialing (like 760) now you have the reverse problem that you DO want the full 10 digits stored even for local calls. So the solution: go into your phone's setup menu, find the area code setting, and empty it, or put 999 if you can't empty it. That should stop your phone from truncating the numbers.
overlay phone system
No matter the justification the system is bad. The phone company didn't look into alternatives that made more sense, they already had their minds made up. It doesn't make sense to have Palm Springs and the surrounding area under 760. It doesn't make since that a seperate area code be designed for cell phones. With the population dropping due to the economy how many cell, auto and private numbers have been given up? This system is a mess and who ever came up with it should be fired!
RE: overlay phone system
Jill,
I'd be interested in hearing your approach to the problem. How do you think it should have been done? What "alternatives... make more sense"?
Palm Spings already was and will still be in 760, and now 442 as well. As I've mentioned, Palm Springs and other sections of Riverside County, all the way up the Owens Valley have been part of 619, and later, 760, for decades. It's not like they took 760 out of another A/C and made a little isolated spot of 760 out there. It's contiguous from the Mexican border at Calexico all the way up to Mono County. See the map in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_codes_442_and_760
In fact they had their minds made up, and so did the PUC, to NOT do the overlay and, instead, make North County San Diego be 442 and leave the rest of 760 as-is, to the economic detriment of many businesses. NOW, nothing changes for the existing businesses except required 10 digit dialing - OH the pain! Or, to quote John Lennon, "I've got blisters on my fingers!" (Helter Skelter) ;^)
A separate So. Cal. A/C was not designed for cell phones - where did you get THAT from?
And I am absolutely devastated to hear "the population [is] dropping due to the economy"! Oh, the humanity! People are dying in droves because stocks are down a few thousand points! They're dropping like flies with cell phones clutched in their probisci!
Jill, it costs telco money to do a split or an overlay. They have a lot of reprogramming and PR work to do and they can't directly recoup these losses. I just don't see why they would have gone to the trouble to initiate a split and, later, an overlay instead, if all these rotting corpses had truly freed up sufficient numbers to keep the citizens and businesses of 760 going for another 5 years or so.
Why don't incoming calls show the 1-760 so you can redial a numb
Why doesn't a call you receive from someone in my 760 area show the 1-760 like calls I receive from 323 and other area code areas?
GUESS THEY DIDN'T TAKE LONG ENOUGH TO PUT THIS IN TO ACTION WITHOUT CAUSING A PROBLEM RIGHT AWAY!
Typical
1-760 not showing on your phone for redial
Some phones have a feature where you store your area code. Then whenever that phone sees that area code at the beginning of the callerid digits it truncates the area code and the "1" just leaving the 7 digit local number. This was done so that you can hit redial and it will dial only the 7 digits. That is what you need in areas that do not have 10-digit dialing. In fact in those areas, the switch will reject a 10-digit dial for a local call. BUT, in areas that have mandatory 10-digit dialing (like 760) now you have the reverse problem that you DO want the full 10 digits stored even for local calls. So the solution: go into your phone's setup menu, find the area code setting, and empty it, or put 999 if you can't empty it. That should stop your phone from truncating the numbers.
Re: Why don't incoming calls show the 1-760?
Art:
It would make sense to me. But I'll bet there's a better reason than, simply, telco rushed to do this...it's been in the works for a couple years now.
On what kind of phone (i.e. cellular, home (cordless or desktop), business phone system) are you only getting "5550100" vs "7605550100"? Which carrier do you subscribe to at your end?
Caller ID formatting varies in a couple ways. Technically described, any phone making a call ships the caller's phoner number digits to the provider at the called party's end.
If the called number is an analog (POTS) line, the carrier will use the caller ID digits to lookup the caller's number and their name (or some related text) from a table, and will send the numbers and text to the phone as a brief data burst between the first and second rings (if you pick up before the second ring you wont get the Caller ID). Generally you can't use this Caller ID info for REDIAL or for a contact entry because it has text mixed with the digits - kinda useless, really.
People having Toll Free numbers will usually get just the digits, which is more useful with technology but doesn't give you the name. Because they're paying for the line, the logic goes, they have a right to know who's calling and therefore see the digits even if the caller has blocking enabled.
A cell phone just gets the digits. Again, this is more useful than digits + text since you can store it or match it. If you see the caller's name on your cell phone when it rings, this is almost certainly because this caller is already in your Contacts and the phone matched the digits received with the Contact and displayed the name. If your friend John Bunkfeldt calls and you have him stored as "Bunky", you will see 555-555-1212 - BUNKY on your phone.
And these rules aren't universal. Tests I made:
Calling a Cox Business line from my Verizon cell gave "Cell Phone CA 858-555-0100"
Calling a Cox Business line from a residential POTS phone gave "My Name 858-555-1212"
Calling a TelePacific PRI line from my Verizon cell phone gave "La Jolla CA 858-555-0100"
Calling a TelePacific PRI line from my residential AT&T POTS phone gave "My Name 858-555-1212"
Calling my AT&T residential POTS phone from my Verizon cell phone gave "La Jolla CA 858-555-0100"
Calling my AT&T residential POTS phone from my TelePacific PRI line gives "My Company 858-555-4141
It LOOKS like Cox isn't registering their business customers with the databases that the carriers use to look up names. Normally, the sending telephone switching equipment (aka "The C.O.") sends the digits and the receiving switch (your end) looks these digits up in a database and adds the resulting text then sends it all to your phone. There doesn't appear to BE any resulting text for Cox customers.
Look at the 3rd, 6th, and 9th examples. The "LA Jolla CA" text is what Verizon puts in the database for all their phones serviced by exchanges registered to La Jolla. Cox, for some reason, ships the text "Cell Phone CA". Other carriers are even more generic, just putting "Mobile Customer" or similar in the database for all their subsctibers. More info here.
On 2 different residential POTS lines, both in the same (858) Area Code, I confirmed that I got all 10 digits when I called each other - as opposed to just 7 digits like you got, I can't explain how you are just getting 7 digits. Let me know what your equipment is and your carrier and I'll see what else I can come up with.
Thanks for writing.
CallerID Name not displaying for Cox Business customers
Phil, the database you mention that cross-references the number with the name is called LIDB-Line information database. This is maintained by the ILEC-Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier. In our area in San Diego the ILEC is AT&T (fka PacBell). Now all the of CLEC-competitive local exchange carriers must fill-out a paper form and submit it to AT&T to have their customer's name added to the LIDB database (and also the telephone book and 411 directory assistance). This is a manual, paper process and it fails quite often. A lot of times the Cox salesman is lazy and never fills-out the form, figuring you'll never know the difference. Or the clerk in Cox's office doesn't mail the form to AT&T. Or AT&T screws it up. In any event, the end result is that your company name is not loaded into the LIDB database so when you make outbound calls, the name simply says "Unavailable". The solution is to call Cox and have them resubmit this form.
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