Prevent 10-digit local phone numbers
Who wants to dial at least 10 digits to call next door? According to a New York Public Service Commission announcement, that threat has been put off until 2013, but it'll be back. The Watertown Daily Times reported on Dec. 10 that a state administrative law judge had recommended against splitting the 315 area- code region into two sections. The only other option is an overlay — two area codes covering the same geographic region. Then in all cases you must dial at least 10 digits, sometimes 11. There is minimal risk of actual number shortage. Rather, the entity that doles out numbers does so 10,000 at a time. There's the problem.
Consider Adams Center, 583-xxxx. I recall seeing only 583-5xxx and 583-6xxx numbers. The other 8,000 permutations are evidently unused. Twenty percent efficiency. Ugh! What are the chances of there ever being 10,000 phones in AC, even with faxes and cell phones thrown in? That's one example. Multiply that by the number of rural central offices, and it appears that the purported shortage is a figment.
Albany cannot fix the problem.
The industry-based number block manager, the North American Numbering Plan Administration in the form of a company named NeuStar which does the work in the United States, reports to an agency in Washington. That agency is not an industry pawn. It is attentive.
Form letters don't work. But a simple, brief, unemotional letter in your own words to the Acting Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. 20554, asking that smaller number blocks, perhaps 1,000 at a time, be handed out to service providers and that unused thousand-number blocks be returned to the kitty so as not to perpetuate artificial shortages to the detriment of rural America, will get consideration. After all, who needs an overlay if perhaps 8 percent of the allocated numbers lie fallow?
Here, do yourself a favor. I bet you have the time to write. And, even in today's economy, I reckon you have 44 cents to spare.
Francis K. Williams
Adams
