More Area Codes

The phone company is about to do it to us again--yet another area code for Los Angeles! Something is very wrong with the current system if they need three area codes for one city. At the rate new area codes are added we will have five or six by the year 2000!

To make matters even worse, we have to dial the number 1 first to let the phone company know we are about to dial an area code--four additional numbers per area code.

Instead of adding four new numbers to the beginning of a phone number, all they need to do is add one new number to the end of everyone’s number and they will have 10 times as many numbers. I think if we can all remember to dial 1 before an area code we certainly could be trained to dial a 1 at the end of the present phone numbers and eliminate the proliferation of new area codes.

L. PAUL COOK, Los Angeles