Illinois regulators will decide Wednesday whether to fight the implementation of a new area code in Chicago’s north and northwest suburbs, or let the new code take effect this spring.
The telephone industry is pressing to launch a new 224 area code in the existing 847 area–even though only about half of 847’s available phone numbers are in use.
Illinois Commerce Commission members were clearly frustrated Tuesday by the situation and the industry’s arcane practices regarding the distribution of phone numbers.
“It’s outrageous,” said Commissioner Ruth Kretschmer.
Of a total of 7.7 million available phone numbers in the 847 area, only 3.8 million are in use.Even so, there is a shortage of new prefixes in the 847 code, said Brent Struthers, director of regulatory matters for NeuStar Inc., the company that administers phone numbers for the industry.
NeuStar is poised to hand out four new prefixes under the 224 code next week if it gets ICC approval, and the new numbers would be activated by mid-May. When that happens, everyone in the 847 area will be required to dial 11 digits when calling their neighbors who also have 847 area numbers.
The ICC opposes mandatory 11-digit dialing and has asked the Federal Communications Commission to extend a waiver here to postpone the end of seven-digit local dialing. But there is no indication the FCC will grant the waiver extension.
Seamus Glynn, associate director of the Citizens Utility Board, urged the ICC to reject NeuStar’s declaration of an 847 number exhaustion and order NeuStar to dole out some of the two dozen “protected” prefixes that are held in reserve. These include prefixes such as 708, 630 and 815 that also happen to be area codes in Illinois. Phone companies do not like to use those prefixes for aesthetic reasons, but it is technically feasible and in some area codes those numbers arealready in use.
Glynn also said the ICC should order companies that are hoarding 847 prefixes to return them to the system so they can be used by other companies.
The FCC is the final authority on phone number distribution, but it gives wide latitude to state regulators to control numbers within a state. The shared jurisdiction over numbers raised questions among ICC members over their ability to force phone companies to conserve phone numbers.
Glynn said that Illinois law and FCC regulations give the ICC sufficient authority to head off immediate activation of the 224 code. The ICC asked its attorney to review the question and report back Wednesday, when the regulators will decide what to do.
One aspect of the matter that regulators found particularly vexing is that the data presented by the industry on phone number utilization is wildly inaccurate. NeuStar’s Struthers said that he found hundreds of errors in the data. Glynn agreed that the information is riddled with error, but said he attempted to correct for that in his analysis.
NeuStar’s estimates suggest the rest of the Chicago region is in for a spate of new area codes unless the ICC can head them off. The firm actually estimated that the 630 area’s number supply would run out two months ago, but since that did not happen, it is revising that estimate.
NeuStar’s estimates predict that 708 will run out of numbers by this summer, that 312 will run dry in just over a year and that 773 will be short of numbers in 15 months.
