New Area Code

As Maryland businesses prepare to adjust to two telephone area codes instead of one, companies in other parts of the country say they have easily adjusted to similar changes, given enough time and help from the telephone company.The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland has announced that in a year, the eastern part of the state, including Baltimore, will be given a new area code -- 410."We were all set for it to be a big problem, but it wasn't," said Dinah Keefe, a spokeswoman for Household International Inc., a financial firm in suburban Chicago.

New area code 667 is coming to town starting Saturday, state regulators said Wednesday. Customers in Central Maryland and the Eastern Shore requesting a new phone number for any device may get the new area code. Customers with existing phone numbers or those who move within the same local exchange calling area and choose to keep their numbers will not be affected. The Maryland Public Service Commission said last year that a new area code was needed because the existing 410 and 443 codes could be exhausted in early 2012.

Money Today story on Friday included a list of telephone exchanges that will be getting the 410 area code on Nov. 1. The list did not include 18 exchanges that will be affected. They are: 213, 219, 404, 418, 481, 514, 516, 555, 614, 617, 715, 806, 813, 819, 844, 915, 936, 950, 954, 976. The Evening Sun regrets the error.A week from now, residents of eastern Maryland will get their choice of two telephone area codes. But it will only last a year.Beginning next Friday, the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland introduces the 410 area code in the Baltimore metropolitan area, the entire Eastern Shore, Calvert County and most of Carroll, Howard and Anne Arundel counties.

My family had scarcely moved into our northwest Baltimore City home forty-some years ago when C+P Telephone decreed our 358 (FLeetwood 8) phone number would be changed to a number bearing a brand new, 578 exchange. Much worse than the impossibility of turning JKL (5) and PQRS (7) into a word was the utter unfamiliarity and rootlessness of a new exchange - one that wouldn't immediately convey a sense of place. I've always had a thing for numbers; the black and whiteness of 2 plus 2 always equaling 4 was a childhood comfort amid daily shades of gray, and it's something I still cling to in adulthood.

What's in a number? An area code by any other number does not dial as sweet, many Marylanders no doubt will discover on Nov. 1 when their familiar 301 turns into the alien 410."It feels like slicing off a part of you," said Robert Kanigel, a Baltimore writer. "There are emotional associations with numbers. I grew up at 1396 East 51st Street in Brooklyn, and even now when I see the numbers 1-3-9-6 somewhere, I get a little thrill."Mr. Kanigel might have a greater affinity for numbers than the average person -- his most recent book, "The Man Who Knew Infinity," is about a mathematics genius from India -- but even if you're not sentimental about the numbers of your personal past, getting a new area code still can prove problematic.

The 301 habit is proving difficult to break.Almost two-thirds of all calls made from within the state to numbers in the new 410 area code are still being dialed using the old 301 prefix, a study by the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. shows.That's despite the fact that 99 percent of C&P's business customers and 92 percent of residential customers know that the eastern half of the state officially and forever entered the domain of 410 on Nov. 1."In other words, while nearly everyone knows about the new area code, our studies show that many people aren't dialing it yet," said Dave Pacholczyk, a C&P spokesman in Baltimore.

Bell Atlantic's plan to add two new Maryland area codes took a step forward yesterday: The 443 area code went into effect.Phone lines that are now in operation will be able to keep the old area code, said Bell Atlantic spokeswoman Sandra Arnette. The 443 area code was designed for new phone lines in Baltimore and eastern Maryland, an area now covered by the 410 code.Arnette said new phone customers will still be able to get numbers with the 410 area code until about the end of this year, when the supply of 410 numbers is projected to run out."

Why are telephone customers in Baltimore and counties east of the Patuxent River getting saddled with a new area code next year -- 410 -- while customers in the bedroom communities surrounding Washington aren't?"

Even the best-laid plans, so the saying goes, can go awry. That seems to be the case with C&P, which is continuing to receive complaints from out-of-towners who can't complete calls into Maryland when using the new 410 area code.The problem, according to Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co., is that many out-of-state businesses haven't yet reprogrammed their office telephone equipment to recognize the new Maryland area code on out-going calls.The biggest offenders are office private branch exchange (PBX)

In two days, a whole lot of people are going to have their wires crossed.Friday is the day for the biggest change in Maryland's phonesystem since the advent of touch-tone service, as Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. slaps a brand-new area code on most of Carroll andthe rest of the Baltimore area.Say goodbye -- unless you live in or around Mount Airy -- to 301 and hello to 410.While the phone company for a year has been slowly preparing the nearly 2 million people affected by the change, the reality of a new set of phone-identifying digits has taken many by surprise.

Starting in March, residents in counties on the Eastern Shore and in central Maryland requesting new phone numbers may receive a new area code, state utility regulators announced Wednesday. The new area code, 667, is being activated because the Federal Communications Commission expects the existing 410 and 443 codes will be exhausted in early 2012, said Douglas Nazarian, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission. It will be issued in the areas where 410 and 443 are currently used: the city of Baltimore as well as Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Dorchester, Harford, Howard, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico and Worcester counties, according to the commission.

People in Central Maryland and the Eastern Shore will have to add a new set of three digits to their contact lists starting in March. Customers requesting a new phone number for any device may get the new area code 667, state regulators announced Wednesday. The new code is being activated because the Federal Communications Commission expects the existing 410 and 443 codes will be exhausted in early 2012, said Douglas Nazarian, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission. Demand drove the need to create a new area code, including a sudden spike in the number of new numbers requested in September.

They have trouble ordering taxis, cashing checks and getting pizzas delivered.They are the roughly 17,000 unlucky telephone customers with the state's newest area codes -- 443 and 240."The biggest problem is that no one believes you," said Kashmere Davis, 42, of Gaithersburg.Davis said that when she needs to provide her telephone number with the 240 area code, store clerks become confused. And taxi dispatchers are blunt -- they tell her no such area code exists in Maryland."I tell them to call me back to check, and then I have to hang up and they call me back," she said.

Bell Atlantic's plan to add two new Maryland area codes took a step forward yesterday: The 443 area code went into effect.Phone lines that are now in operation will be able to keep the old area code, said Bell Atlantic spokeswoman Sandra Arnette. The 443 area code was designed for new phone lines in Baltimore and eastern Maryland, an area now covered by the 410 code.Arnette said new phone customers will still be able to get numbers with the 410 area code until about the end of this year, when the supply of 410 numbers is projected to run out."

In the beginning, there were telephones, but no telephone numbers. Calls were placed by operators, who connected people by name.Then came numbers, but the first phone numbers were short -- "5" could be a person's complete telephonic address. Or "27." Or "326." The growth in the number of digits matched the growing number of phones. Eventually, phone numbers in the largest cities reached seven digits, expressed as a combination of two letters and five numbers, such as LO 4-5678.Then came area codes.

Ken Fields is trying to figure out where his phone calls have gone.Tom DeChant can tell him.The St. Louis public-relations man and the Wisconsin space planning consultant are both victims of confusion that America's long-distance companies knew was coming but can't seem to lick: people can't figure out how to make toll-free phone calls in a post-800 world.Since March, toll-free calls have included an 888 area code as well as 800, because the system is running out of 800 numbers. But Fields and DeChant say, and long-distance companies agree, that customers are taking their time getting the message.

If you keep dialing 401 instead of the new 410 area code, you are not alone.The problem that many people are having stems from the similarity between the old area code, 301, and the new area code, according to Alfonso Caramazza, professor and chairman of the department of cognitive science at Johns Hopkins University."

In the beginning there was 301.And then, in 1992, came 410, as Maryland was divided in two. The telephone industry looked upon the new area code and said, "This is good."Good for about five years, as it turned out.Discarding previous predictions that two area codes would serve Maryland well into the next decade, Bell Atlantic Corp. announced yesterday that Maryland will need two new area codes by 1997.The reason, Bell Atlantic said yesterday, is that the phone industry, flooded with requests for new numbers for cellular phones, fax machines, computer modems, pagers and other communications devices, is running out of seven-digit combinations in Maryland.

The seven-digit phone call to the neighbor down the street will fade into history under a decision issued yesterday by the state Public Service Commission.Faced with a need for two new area codes in Maryland, the PSC decided the lesser of two evils was to "overlay" the new prefixes within the boundaries of the existing 410 and 301 prefixes. Thus, a longtime Baltimore-area resident could have a 410 number while a new neighbor could have a different area code.Under the overlay system, millions of Marylanders will have to dial 10 digits for each local call -- no matter how short the distance -- beginning about two years from now.By a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Susanne Brogan dissenting, the PSC rejected an alternative that would have split the two existing area codes along geographic lines.

Apparently dissatisfied with the options it has been presented for creating two new area codes in Maryland, the state Public Service Commission yesterday asked telephone companies and other parties in the case to give it some more palatable alternatives.So far, the PSC has been given two proposals for dealing with the state's impending shortage of telephone numbers in the 301 and 410 area codes.One would split both existing area codes in two, following an industry-drafted map that would separate Baltimore from Baltimore County and most other suburbs.