Phone Firms Pushing FCC to Add Area Codes in State

California phone companies are pressing federal regulators to force the introduction of at least 12 new area codes statewide, including six more in the Los Angeles region.

The request to override the state’s phone number conservation measures, contained in a May 12 letter to the FCC only recently made public, argues that prolonged rationing of new phone numbers means that “California carriers are effectively denied the equitable access to numbers guaranteed to them by the Telecommunications Act.”

That argument sparked a blistering response on Friday from a member of the state Public Utilities Commission, the agency that regulates phone companies and approves area code actions. PUC Commissioner Carl Wood called the request to the FCC “an outrageous act of self-serving corporate arrogance” and called on the phone companies to withdraw the letter.

“Since the beginning of the CPUC’s efforts to slow down area code proliferation, the reaction of most of the industry has ranged from foot-dragging to open opposition,” Wood said in a statement issued late Friday. “This attitude hurts the interest of California’s consumers and will discredit the industry itself in the long run.”

This latest wrinkle in the state’s volatile area code issue is sure to touch off renewed outrage from Californians who are already fed up with the onslaught of new codes. If the phone companies get their way, the state would jump to 37 area codes, up from the current 25.

The letter asks the FCC to require new area codes in the Los Angeles-area communities now served by area codes 310, 323, 714, 805, 818 and 909. In addition, the companies called for new codes in San Diego’s 619 and the Northern California communities covered by 408, 415, 510, 530 and 650.

The companies that signed the letter include GTE, Sprint, WorldCom, AT&T;, Verizon Wireless (formerly AirTouch), Time Warner Telecom, MediaOne Telecommunications and others.

Pacific Bell, the state’s largest local phone company, said it did not sign the letter because it wants to work out the problems directly with the state PUC.

WorldCom spokeswoman Julie Moore said that the company continues to support the number conservation measures in California, but that the actions will not be enough to solve the number crunch.

For decades, phone numbers have been given out to phone companies in blocks of 10,000 (each block is an entire “prefix”), regardless of how many numbers were needed. In addition, technical issues have in the past prohibited companies from sharing their extra numbers with others--a situation that leaves millions of phone numbers unused in each region.

In a recent study of phone number usage in the 310 area code--where a public uprising prevented implementation of a new area code recently--regulators discovered that almost 1 million phone numbers could be made immediately available. Under a trial system underway in the 310 region and that will soon expand to other codes, phone companies are being issued numbers in blocks of 1,000.

In addition, regulators are rationing the remaining prefixes in monthly lotteries throughout the state. As the number of prefixes has dwindled, the state has begun to give out fewer prefixes in each lottery.

In their letter to the FCC, the phone companies argued that state regulators are using number rationing to artificially prolong the life of existing area codes and thus avoid the unpopular task of adding new area codes.

Representatives from the phone companies said the lack of numbers will ultimately hurt competition and stunt the growth of the wireless phone industry because the lotteries are leaving some companies without phone numbers to assign to customers in the hardest-hit regions.

Under federal law, the CPUC is obligated to provide area code relief when it is needed, according to Helen Mickiewicz, an attorney at the CPUC.

“The argument we are having is about when that relief is needed,” she said. “The industry would say it is needed today in all 12 of those area codes, and we would say no, it’s not.”

Many of phone carriers who are pushing for FCC intervention have taken a contradictory position in Sacramento. There, the companies are actively lobbying against further area code reform by arguing, in part, that the state’s new phone number conservation measures make further changes unnecessary.

State Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), who is pushing a bill that would pave the way for special area codes for services such as fax and ATM machines, unveiled the phone companies’ FCC letter during a floor debate on her bill this week.

“These carriers that are opposing this [bill], arguing that number conservation is the way to go, have at the same time filed a petition with the FCC asking them to direct the California Public Utilities Commission to override the PUC’s number conservation efforts and to immediately order splits in all of those area codes,” Bowen told Senate colleagues. “It says something about the credibility of the carriers on this issue.”