Area Code 716 Split
David Esan
of NPA 716. You can find it at:
www.rochesternews.com/1021areacode.html
David Esan
Veramark Technologies
de...@veramark.com
Ryan Tucker
my-deja.com> spewed:
> There is an article in Thursday's Rochester, NY newspaper about the split
> of NPA 716. You can find it at:
> www.rochesternews.com/1021areacode.html
Argh. If it comes down to a split, Rochester is *not* going to get to
keep 716. Buffalo is simply bigger.
What is it with people being so resistant to overlays? -rt
Ryan Tucker <rtuck...@ttgcitn.com> http://www.ttgcitn.com/~rtucker/
President, TTGCITN Communications Box 92425, Rochester NY 14692-0425
Please keep public threads public -- e-mail responses will be ignored.
davi...@my-deja.com
199...@katan.ttgcitn.com wrote:
> In <telecom1...@telecom-digest.org>, David Esan <davidesan@
> my-deja.com> spewed:
>> There is an article in Thursday's Rochester, NY newspaper about the
>> split of NPA 716. You can find it at:
>> www.rochesternews.com/1021areacode.html
> Argh. If it comes down to a split, Rochester is *not* going to get to
> keep 716. Buffalo is simply bigger.
> What is it with people being so resistant to overlays? -rt
I'm resistant in this case, because 99% of all my calls require only
seven digits. I can't see why I have to dial ten digits, just so
Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch&Lomb don't have to change their
paperwork. We are already suffering from the stupidity of the
telephone companies who assign full exchanges to any company wasting
thousands of available telephone numbers, who create strange rate
centers so that more exchanges have to be assigned, who resist any
change at all in any of these policies because it would cost them
money even though they are making money hand over fist.
I can understand overlays in large cities where ten digit dialing is
part of a normal way of life. But in Rochester or Buffalo? C'mon,
lets get Global Communications and Bell Titanic to fix the problem.
If they can't, lets split the area code, and leave the average
consumer alone.
Although I am amused at the three-way split that would put the
southern tier of 716 in its own area code. When will that run out of
exchanges? 2100?
David Esan
Veramark Technologies
de...@veramark.com
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's basically what happened in
Chicago with the 312/773 split a few years ago. Ameritech was going
to do it essentially in reverse: A much smaller geographical part
of the downtown area was going to be moved off of 312 and into 773
which would have allowed the downtown area an almost infinite amount
of expansion room while permitting everyone else in Chicago to keep
312 and the status-quo for several years. The Jackson/Adams/Clark/
LaSalle area downtown just literally eats up tens of thousands of
phone lines in that little area alone between the banks, the stock
exchanges, and the several very large companies. It was going to go
west pulling in the medical center and the University of Illinois.
They were all going to get 773 as their domain, and everyone else
could keep 312 with enough spare room to last for a few years.
But no, no! Better that two million Chicagoans should all have to
change their area code than that a firm of five hundred lawyers
downtown or a couple of banks and the federal center at Jackson
and Dearborn Street should have to change their letterheads and
hire someone competent to reprogram their phone systems, etc. So
they kept 312 which will soon need to be split again while all the
people around town had to learn to live with 773. PAT]
Eric Florack
intoned, regarding the area code 716 split:
> What is it with people being so resistant to overlays? -rt
Likely, Ryan, it has to do with stationary, business cards, automated
dialers, the need to re-program any on-site phone systems, lost
business for mis-routed calls etc, etc etc, all of which have been
well-documented here in this group. I note you live in Hilton, (a
burb about 25 miles NW out of Midtown).O ut your way, your split will
likely cause some problems with dial-up to the eastern burbs, such as
Webster, and Perinton, and even to the western burbs such as Scottsville.
I agree, that for many, such as yourself, who apparently are not bound
to dialup lines, (being tied to Cable TV instead) it's a small
matter. To others who make their living on the phone, it tends to be a
much larger matter.
With my regards.
/E
Eric Florack
eflo...@servtech.com
bign...@billsfan.com
http://www.servtech.com/~eflorack/
Ryan Tucker
<davi...@my-deja.com> spewed:
> I'm resistant in this case, because 99% of all my calls require only
> seven digits. I can't see why I have to dial ten digits, just so
> Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch&Lomb don't have to change their
> paperwork. We are already suffering from the stupidity of the
> telephone companies who assign full exchanges to any company wasting
> thousands of available telephone numbers, who create strange rate
> centers so that more exchanges have to be assigned, who resist any
> change at all in any of these policies because it would cost them
> money even though they are making money hand over fist.
I don't want to have to change my paperwork either ;-) I already list
my area code on everything, and would rather not have to deal with the
trouble of changing that. Leave existing exchanges alone; just give
new lines the new area code.
Then again, dialing ten digits isn't a problem for me -- my only
telephone is a cellphone, and all of the speed dials are programmed with
area code. So perhaps I'm not average ;-)
Dana Paxson
Rochester for twenty years as a systems engineer, planning and
supporting the Directory Assistance systems Nortel builds and
installs. Area code splits are a headache no matter which way one
goes. Somebody always gets stuck with the ten-digit curse.
Ryan Tucker is lucky to have all the right things in place: ten-digit
numbers already programmed. That makes things easy, but few others
are in this position. Eric Florack's point about all the reprinting
and redirecting necessary when numbers change is valid beyond
question. So what to do?
Geographic splits guarantee that one area of turf gets all the work in
the split. Overlays manage to spread the pain equally, but probably
cause more than the total pain caused by the geographic split, mostly
due to the fixed labor overhead associated with reprinting and
reprogramming subsets of numbers everywhere. But there may be a
better way.
Much of the pressure on the number space comes from identifiable
sources: modem lines, fax lines, wireless, and second or third lines.
There are also groups of numbers reserved but not fully used. Why not
think of phone numbers in terms of their sources, especially in
growing areas of expansion? I would prefer to see the new area
code(s) go to those sources of new numbers that are rapidly growing,
and leave the stable number base alone.
Wireless is the first candidate. Second would be all those new
numbers not to be published. Third would be all new corporate number
exchanges, where the company is already undergoing a complete overhaul
of all its numbers anyway. The point is that the new area codes
should follow the 'churn' in the number base, not interfere with the
stable numbers. Hell, new numbers haven't been printed or programmed
on anything yet. Why shouldn't they make the best candidates for new
area codes?
Or is this too simple?
I'm sure that some readers can find fault with this proposal. I
haven't checked the statistics on it all, but years of work on DA
databases have told me that the cost of leaving well enough alone (or
bad enough alone, as the case may be) is a lot less than making it
worse.
Please, let's not overlay these area codes. Before anybody leaps
ahead, applying some more brains would help minimize the impacts.
Of course, when Internet telephony really hits, and cable telephony
wakes up, the game will change completely, so most of this will be
moot. Can you say 'dial by URL'? Thought so.
Dana W. Paxson
dwpa...@acm.org
716 224-9356
Reality boggles everything. That's why we've got denial.
Ryan Tucker
<eflo...@servtech.com> spewed:
>> What is it with people being so resistant to overlays? -rt
> Likely, Ryan, it has to do with stationary, business cards, automated
> dialers, the need to re-program any on-site phone systems, lost
> business for mis-routed calls etc, etc etc, all of which have been
> well-documented here in this group. I note you live in Hilton, (a
> burb about 25 miles NW out of Midtown).O ut your way, your split will
> likely cause some problems with dial-up to the eastern burbs, such as
> Webster, and Perinton, and even to the western burbs such as Scottsville.
I'd think people would be more resistant to a split than an overlay if
it was about stationary, busienss cards, etc.
And actually, I live in the city ... my mailing address is a PO Box at
the main post office and my main phone line is a cellphone, so you'd
never know it *grin*
> I agree, that for many, such as yourself, who apparently are not bound
> to dialup lines, (being tied to Cable TV instead) it's a small
> matter. To others who make their living on the phone, it tends to be a
> much larger matter.
My employer is one of the local ISP's, so yes, I really don't want
anything to happen because the tech support people will get cranky
*grin* ... however, if a split happens, face it: Rochester is getting
a new area code. And that'll cause just as much trouble. -rt
Bob Goudreau
>> What is it with people being so resistant to overlays? -rt
> Likely, Ryan, it has to do with stationary [sic], business cards,
> automated dialers, the need to re-program any on-site phone systems,
> lost business for mis-routed calls etc, etc etc, all of which have
> been well-documented here in this group.
If you are arguing *against* an overlay, the items you have enumerated
above don't seem to add overwhelming support to your argument. Let's
consider them one at a time:
1) Stationery: no change required for an overlay; new stationery
must be ordered if your area code changes due to a split.
Advantage: Overlay.
2) Business cards: same as above.
Advantage: Overlay.
3) Automated dialers: depends on how many of the speed-dial settings
are currently for 7D numbers, but let's be generous and assume that
most are (though in my actual case, only three of the combined 15
speed-dial buttons on my home and office phones are for 7D numbers).
Advantage: Split.
4) PBX reprogramming: similar to the automated dialer issue.
Advantage: Split.
5) Lost business due to misrouted calls: under an overlay, your
business retains its current number. Local callers who mistakenly
try dialing it with only 7 digits get the standard error message
telling them to try again with the area code, and 99.99% of them
successfully do so. (The remaining 0.01% are thus too obtuse to
dial *any* local number under the new 10D regime, and will
probably be dead of starvation within a few weeks.) Long distance
callers are completely unaffected by the overlay. Under a split,
however, your old number will become unassigned (and perhaps
eventually reassigned to someone else), and some non-local callers
who have your old brochures or stationery and who haven't heard
about your new area code will not be able to reach you.
Advantage: Overlay.
So, on balance, it appears that you have provided more arguments
*in favor* of an overlay than against one.
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Jack Decker
servtech.com> wrote:
> Geographic splits guarantee that one area of turf gets all the work in
> the split. Overlays manage to spread the pain equally, but probably
> cause more than the total pain caused by the geographic split, mostly
> due to the fixed labor overhead associated with reprinting and
> reprogramming subsets of numbers everywhere. But there may be a
> better way.
> Much of the pressure on the number space comes from identifiable
> sources: modem lines, fax lines, wireless, and second or third lines.
> There are also groups of numbers reserved but not fully used. Why not
> think of phone numbers in terms of their sources, especially in
> growing areas of expansion? I would prefer to see the new area
> code(s) go to those sources of new numbers that are rapidly growing,
> and leave the stable number base alone.
I have a preference too, but it's not exactly the same. My
understanding is that much of the reason we are running out of area
codes is because so many CLEC's have to get numbers in ever rate
center due to small local calling areas. In this day and age, I
cannot see ANY good reason why anything further than 10 or 12 miles
away should be a toll call.
What I would like to see is forced exchange consolidation. If we
consider a typical city in certain parts of the country, the central
city is considered to have one exchange (although Ameritech has been
known to divide larger cities into separate zones within the city!).
Then the surrounding suburbs are in several smaller exchanges that
ring the city.
My idea would be this: Pass a federal law (or state laws if for some
reason the feds can't use the "commerce clause" to get around states'
rights, as they usually do) that says that for any city of over 50,000
lines, the exchange for that city must be merged with any other
exchanges within 25 miles of that city. The 25 miles would be
calculated using the nearest exchange boundaries, not the rate centers
-- if any point in exchange "A" is within any point in exchange "B",
the two would be merged together. If two (or more) adjacent cities
both have over 50,000 lines, they'd be combined into one exchange
first, and then the 25 miles out would be calculated using that
combined exchange as the basis for the calculation (that is, any
community that is within 25 miles of the boundary for any of the
former adjacent exchanges would be folded into the new exchange).
So, whereas before you would have had a central city, or perhaps a
metropolitan area ringed by a bunch of smaller exchanges, you'd now
have one larger one. The new mega exchange would still have local
calling to any exchange that was formerly local to _any_ of the merged
exchanges, so no one would lose local calling to anywhere, but most
everyone would have local calling to many more places than was
formerly possible. Yes, this might even give some people a really
huge local calling area (100 miles or more from one end to the other
in some cases) but you know what? I really doubt that the phone
companies would go broke, given the capacity of fiber-optic trunking
these days.
In more sparsely populated areas, where no city in a county currently has
over 50,000 lines, all the exchanges currently in a county would be
combined, and everyone in the county would be given local calling to the
adjacent counties. If a particular exchange was just outside the 25 mile
radius to be included in a metro calling area, but the majority of
exchanges in the county were going into that area, you'd fold the smaller
exchange in anyway, just to keep it from being isolated from the rest of
the county.
In the case where a smaller exchange might be within the 25 mile
radius for two (or more) larger exchanges, it would be folded in with
the nearest of the two IF both are in the same county. In the case
where the nearest larger exchange is not in the same county but
another is, it would work this way: If the smaller exchange now has
local calling to only one of the larger exchanges, it would be folded
in with that exchange. If it has local calling to two or more of the
exchanges, or none of them, the customers in that exchange would be
polled by postcard ballot for their preference.
The big advantage is that CLEC's, ISP's etc, would only need to have
one access point (and initially, only one exchange) for an entire
"metro" area. In many cases you'd have as many as a dozen or more
small exchanges folded into the new one, so the savings in exchange
prefixes needed for CLEC's could be substantial.
The one objection that I can hear to this (besides the screaming about
loss of toll revenue, since the phone companies would no longer be
able to gouge people for calls to points a few miles away), is "What
if there is currently more than one phone company operating in what
would be a combined exchange? How do you merge exchanges that are
served by different ILEC's?" Well, I really don't see problem in
that. In effect, those companies now become competitors. By default,
they keep their existing customers, and they still own any outside
plant that they owned before. But now, all those companies have the
right to in effect expand their boundaries. If someone located on
what was formerly an across exchange boundary wants to request service
from "the company across the street", they can do so, and the company
is perfectly free to run a line. If someone five miles down the road
makes the same request, and the company wants to run a cable, they are
free to do so (of course, they may have to pay pole rental if they use
another utility's poles). In my opinion, this would be a great way to
jump-start competition in many areas -- make several ILEC's co-equals
with each other in larger exchanges.
I will bet that if, for example, BA/GTE and SBC/Ameritech were
suddenly sharing an exchange, they would not try the same tricks to
inhibit competition that they do with wet-behind-the-ears CLEC's,
because the other company would know all the tricks and would have
them in court so fast that their lawyers couldn't keep up. And of
course, in whatever way they chose to accommodate each other, they'd
also have to accommodate the CLEC's, so as not to appear to be
discriminatory.
Maybe someone thinks that 50,000 lines is too small a number, make it
100,000 then. Or make it a sliding scale based on population. My
point is that all exchanges should be combined in some way, no
existing exchange should be allowed to stay its present size unless it
is already really huge (for example, a case of an entire rural county
being served by only one exchange). I do believe that given the
advance of technology, no one should be stuck with a calling area only
a few miles across. In fact, I'd like to see some progressive state
declare the entire state one exchange, so that everyone in the state
could call anyone else in the state without paying a toll charge.
I'll bet that state would reap tremendous rewards, businesses and
people would move there specifically because of the potential savings
in phone charges.
(If you think that is far-fetched, I recall talking to a real estate
agent in the northern part of the Twin Cities metro area in Minnesota,
just a couple miles or so before you hit the boundary of the metro
calling area. For those who are not aware, the Twin Cities have a
huge local calling area that encompasses most of seven counties, and
it is a local call from ANY part of that area to ANY other part.
Anyway, this real estate agent said that land and homes were
considerably less expensive once you got out of the metro calling area
-- apparently people knew where the Metro area ended, and were
willing to pay a considerable premium for a home that was "out in the
country" but still within the Twin Cities calling area. I had this
conversation at least ten years ago, so I don't know if things have
changed since then, but I would bet they have not).
What about LATA boundaries? They can be considered irrelevant for
local calls (there are already many places where local calling areas
overlap LATA boundaries), and if they get in the way, just abolish the
LATA concept. The phone companies will have to become competitive
under this plan, but if the thinking is that they may not be
competitive enough, then just use state boundaries as the dividing
lines, and tell the telcos they cannot complete out-of-state calls
until they meet the competition guidelines. In many cases, under this
plan there wouldn't be much intra-LATA toll left anyway (since many
formerly-toll calls would become local) so you could justify
abandoning LATAs and using state boundaries instead -- that would give
the local phone companies a way to recover some of the toll revenue
they would lose under this plan.
I guess the above is just one of those little fantasies I have when I
dream at night. I am always hopeful that someday the phone companies
will stop trying to "nickel and dime" people to death. It always
saddens me when I see some poor person struggling to pay a huge phone
bill because I know that the cost to the phone company to complete
those calls wasn't anything near what they charged the customer (mind
you, I don't doubt they can prove some of those costs on paper using
"creative accounting", but frankly I think that much of what the phone
company tries to snow the various utility commissions and the public
with is lies, lies, and more contemptible lies, and also a lot of it
is just plain waste because as a "regulated utility" there is not as
much incentive to cut costs).
It amazes me that some long distance companies in Canada -- Canada,
mind you, where there is a huge area to cover that is mostly sparsely
populated, especially once you get more than a hundred miles or so
away from the southern border -- that in this place where you would
expect costs to be much higher, some long distance companies are able
to offer unlimited long distance calling within Canada for a flat
monthly charge, a charge that is even fairly affordable for the
average family. Why can't we have that here in the United States?
Because our phone companies are gouging their customers and our
government is getting part of the take, that is why.
I wish someone who has good communication skills AND a knowledge of
the telephone industry would write up a reasonably short document,
something that could be read in five minutes or less (ten at the most)
by the average person, explaining how telephone customers are being
exploited. How, for example, it is silly to forward chain messages
around the 'net warning of an impending "modem tax", because that tax
is already here, in the form of an extra charge on additional lines
beyond the first one in a residence (since most "additional lines" are
in fact used by modems, either in computers or FAX machines).
Something that would really explain all those extra charges on the
typical phone bill, and how the government slid all these extra taxes
in, in such a way that they *technically* can't be called a tax, but
in reality there's not a lot of difference between whatever they are
and a tax. Something that you could send to your friends in the
upcoming election year, and especially to the people who insist on
forwarding the latest "modem tax" scare or virus hoax to you every
time one comes around. Give 'em the real skinny on this stuff, and
maybe they'll stop voting for the people who are doing this to us
(maybe another of my fantasies, but I'd like to think it could happen,
if enough people were informed).
Sorry for running on for so long, but it really does bother me the way
we are all getting ripped off on phone charges, and now that the
government's getting part of the take (I'm speaking of the schools and
libraries here, but they ARE part of the government, and any money
they get from phone customers is money that does not have to be taken
out of other tax revenues) they are going to be less inclined to
change things, unless people get really upset about it real soon now.
Somehow our lawmakers have gotten the idea that if something isn't
called a tax, people will be too stupid to realize when the government
is picking their pockets -- and I'm afraid that is true for a certain
percentage of the people.
Jack
(Make the obvious modification to my e-mail address to reply privately)
Ed Ellers
> 1) Stationery: no change required for an overlay; new stationery
> must be ordered if your area code changes due to a split. Advantage:
> Overlay.
> 2) Business cards: same as above. Advantage: Overlay."
You forgot advertising -- in most areas that still have 7D dialing
businesses often use only the 7D number in local ads, on signs, etc.
With an overlay everybody in the NPA has to change their ads to show
10D numbers; with a split the only businesses that have to switch are
those that expect to get business from both sides of the split, which
in many cases are few and far between.