Subject: [NEXTEL-1] FCC allows Connecticut to create wireless area code

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 01:40:58 -0400

FCC allows Connecticut to create wireless area code
By Heather Forsgren Weaver 
June 06 12:43:00, 2003

WASHINGTON-Connecticut won a two-year fight to implement a specific area code for
wireless and certain other phone numbers. 

The Federal Communications Commission said the Connecticut Department of Public
Utility Control could establish a separate area code for wireless and other
non-geographic services. 

The new area code, which will overlay the current 203 and 860 area codes, will
apply only to new wireless subscribers.  The overlay can only be used for wireless
phone numbers for three years. After that, the area code must be opened to all
telecom users. 

Wireless carriers will be required to return numbers in the 203 and 860 area codes
that have not been used. The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau also must approve
Connecticut's implementation plan before the new code can be established. 

Connecticut has been a leader in the fight against the wireless industry to
establish service-specific overlays and technology-specific area code overlays.
Until 2001, the FCC had ruled against states, including Connecticut, wanting to
establish these special area codes. The wireless industry believes it is
discriminatory to allow overlays specifically for wireless phone numbers. 

Connecticut asked the FCC for the overlay in 2001. That it took more than two
years for the agency to respond to Connecticut's request concerned FCC
Commissioner Michael Copps. "I sincerely hope that other states that follow the
path Connecticut blazes here receive a speedier and less conditional response from
the FCC." 

State regulators like the concept of technology-specific overlays because they
believe it will conserve numbers in already-established area codes. The wireless
industry believes that a wireless-specific area code alerts people that they are
dialing a wireless device and that some people who may not want others to know
they are using such a device will not sign up for wireless service. 

In addition, the wireless industry is concerned about the identity some people
have with area codes. An episode of TV show "Seinfeld" dealt with this identity
issue when one of the characters was given a New York telephone number not in the
traditional 212 area code.

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=13789

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