Phone Rage

The delayed implementation of the 310/424 telephone area code overlay for the Westside and South Bay is raising its ugly head again. The California Public Utilities Commission, which agreed to hold off on the overlay while it considered alternatives, is now preparing to go ahead with it in mid-October. There are less disruptive, more consumer-friendly alternatives and they should be tried first.

This problem faces not a single area code but several, including 818 in the San Fernando Valley, as the state struggles with what the PUC calls a “numbering crisis unparalleled in the United States.”

What raises consumers’ hackles is not only the added burden of dialing 11 numbers, which the overlay requires, but that it can be avoided altogether. No one knows that better than Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), who is leading a legislative battle to stop the overlay and force the PUC to consider better solutions.

The PUC itself doesn’t like the plan but is hamstrung by outdated federal rules that create artificial phone number shortages and favor the phone companies, not consumers, in dealing with the problem.

Under the rules, numbers are allocated to phone companies in lots of 10,000, far more than many small companies serving niche markets need. There are 53 such companies serving the 310 area code alone, and the PUC estimates that, statewide, only about one-sixth of the 180 million allocated numbers are being used.

Because it is running out of numbers, the PUC proposed to create new area codes and lay them on top of the old ones. That replenishes the numbers pool, but it also requires phone users to dial 11 digits, even when phoning their own neighbors. Residents of the 310 area code have been living with this hassle since April, when the PUC imposed 11-number dialing in preparation for the overlay. They are furious. Their opposition to 11-number dialing prompted a state administrative law judge, who had recommended an overlay for the 818 area code, to reverse himself and call for splitting the area code geographically instead. But that too would create problems.

Under pressure from Knox and residents of the 310 area, the PUC put off the overlay and petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to allow number assignment in smaller batches and obligate phone companies to return unused numbers. The FCC has proposed to allocate numbers more efficiently, and a final decision is expected soon.

Meanwhile, Knox’s bill (AB 818), moving on a fast track through the Legislature, would authorize the PUC to force phone companies to return unused numbers to the pool and require the commission to scrap the 310 overlay and roll back 11-digit dialing. The PUC’s decision is expected Sept. 16, so there is still time for consumers to register outrage, as surely they should. The FCC ruling and Knox’s measure would obligate California phone regulators to look at solutions with the consumer in mind, not the phone companies.