Finally, it seems, all the convenience of 1990s telephonic gadgetry does have a cost. That cost is inconvenience.
If a proposal run up the telephone pole Friday gets the salute of the Illinois Commerce Commission, people in the northern suburbs and DuPage County who just five years ago slipped into their 708 identity will have to make yet another change.
The 708 area code, obsolete even in its youth, will recede into the old Cook County suburbs west and south of Chicago and into eastern Will County.
Perhaps Bubbles the Clown, a Lake County entrepreneur who depends on her phone for business, best summed up the regions’ reaction to the proposal:
“Ewwwww,” she said, drawing the word out like a rubber worm. “That could cause some problems.”
For people like Bubbles-also known as Sharon Floer, 45, of Ingleside-some of the problems will be reminiscent of the 1989 switch to 708.
Current stationery becomes scrap paper, business cards bookmarks.
But some of the problems are new, showing that our urge and ability to communicate with each other on demand is a complex endeavor. In a twist of irony as tickling as a vibrating beeper, it can actually cut us off from one another-at least temporarily.
Because of antiquated switching systems that can’t read the new area codes, some Chicago businesses actually won’t be able to call out to these new area codes until they spend hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade their phones.
Even those who are scurrying to 800 numbers to find refuge from area-code chaos won’t find complete relief there. On April 1, 1996, a new 888 area code will join 800 to complicate the toll-free world.
But the new area-code map would also solve a problem-and it’s a big one.
The United States has become so entangled in telephonics that it is using up all the phone numbers.
“In our business, we use cell phones and pagers and faxes,” said J.A. Garrett, administrative manager for D.R. Church Landscape Co. in DuPage County. “Even I fought fax machines for years. Now we use them instead of the post office.”
So she is not surprised that her company might be asked to change from 708 to 630. “It’s a bit distressing, but not surprising.”
It might prove surprising to companies that have “old” phone systems-and these days, 2 years old is “old.”
Originally, the U.S. phone system was set up to have three-digit area codes with the middle digit being a 1 or a 0. That way, area codes could be easily recognized by the system’s switches.
After certain numbers were eliminated (such as 911, 800, any code that started with 0, etc.), there were 144 mathematically possible area codes remaining. The designers of the system in 1947 believed that would be enough area codes to last until the end of the century.
They were off by six years.
Last year, the 144th was established in Pennsylvania, meaning that any new area codes would have to include middle digits higher than 1.
That’s where the trouble lies for some office phone systems. Many companies have switches called “public branch exchanges,” or PBXs, that allow a few incoming phone lines to be split off to serve many more phones. Until 1991, these switches were designed to only recognize area codes with 1 or 0 in the middle.
Already this year, three of the new codes have been implemented around the country, and another dozen or so could be on line by year’s end.
“As time goes on there will be more and more telephonic black holes into which people without updated PBXs can not dial,” said Ken Branson, a spokesman for Bellcore, a consulting company owned by the “Baby Bells” which oversees the telephone numbering plan for North America.
The old switching systems must either be upgraded with new software or completely replaced. Software upgrades, which can only be done on newer systems, cost several hundred dollars, while whole new systems typically cost about $1,000 per phone line, with many companies requiring hundreds of lines.
So far, businesses have been lax about making the change.
Carol Mahony, who sells and services PBXs for AT&T in Chicago, said that only about 30 percent of her clients have made the software upgrade her company’s switches need.
“Within the last three months they’ve become more educated, but there is still a long way to go,” Mahony said.
How did DuPage, Lake and northern Cook Counties get the unlucky draw for the proposed new codes while the old, close-in suburbs to the west and south would get to keep their old 708 numbers?
The map-drawing process was a long one.
Last year, the Illinois Commerce Commission, following the advice of the telephone industry, suggested adding a new area code-630-to stave off an impending shortage of telephone numbers in 708.
At first, the commission suggested that all wireless communicators-primarily cellular phones and beepers-be given 630 area codes. But that proposal was shot down by the wireless phone industry, which considered it unfair.
Next, the commission suggested what some have called a “crazy quilt” approach, mixing the 630 area code in with 708 and 312, requiring everybody to dial 11 numbers for every call.
With that plan, area codes would no longer be aptly named, for they would no longer apply to an area. (Houston, incidentally, initiated just such an “overlay” area code March 1.)
Municipalities in the Chicago area hated this idea, though, and a number of governmental groups got together to hash out a better plan that would preserve the idea that area codes have geographic boundaries.
According to interviews with several people involved with drawing the new map, the group decided early on that to keep things understandable, the changes should mimic as much as possible the 1989 switch that put the suburbs into a new 708 area code while the city retained 312.
Since some areas would be fortunate enough to keep 708, it made sense to the group’s members to have that area remain a ring around the 312 area code.
In one proposal, the group suggested adding one new area code that would reduce 708 to just suburban Cook County, and put Lake, DuPage, Kane and part of Will Counties in the new 630 zone. That way, the codes would generally move away from Chicago in rings, going from 312 to 708 to 630 to 815.
But the telephone industry suggested that future growth might require yet another new code within several years, so the group also developed a plan that would add not one, but two new area codes.
Under that plan, the northern portion of suburban Cook County was split out from 708 and joined with Lake County for one new area code (no number has been assigned to it yet), while DuPage County and half of Kane County were joined to become 630.
The two proposals were presented to the Illinois Commerce Commission, and last Friday, the hearing examiner announced that he preferred the three-way split, giving it a leg up on any other plans.
On Friday, the ICC will hear arguments on the plan from representatives of the telephone industry and government. On Monday, the commission will hold its final public hearings on the plan in Chicago and Wheaton.
