covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 07-Jul-1990 1858) (07/08/90)
From: Greg Monti Date: 6 July 1990 Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 Prefixes of the Pentagon-Department of Defense telephone Rate Area have been moved from Area Code 202 to Area Code 703. Up until now, the Pentagon has been one of those rare odd men out in the North American Numbering Plan. The Plan, at least for the US, states that area codes don't cross state lines. The Pentagon, located on land owned by the Federal Government in Arlington County, Virginia, got the 202 Area Code, presumably due to it being the only major Government agency with its headquarters in Virginia at the time Area Codes were established. It got 202 like the other agencies. (Many more Federal agencies have been located in Northern Virginia since; they all have 703 numbers.) Only phones which are extensions of the Pentagon PBX had 202. Private, outside lines, pay phones and private businesses in the Pentagon have 703 numbers. For local callers, the Pentagon's Area Code has been unimportant due to the 7-digit dialing used for local calls in the Washington area. With the advent of 10-digit dialing for local calls across state and Area Code lines, which becomes mandatory 1 October 1990, confusion could have reigned if nothing were done. Would local callers dial 10 digits for local calls which cross *state* boundaries or *area code* boundaries? Suppose your local call crossed only one of the two boundaries? (From DC to Pentagon, you would cross a state line, but not an Area Code boundary. From Virginia, you would cross an Area Code boundary but not a state line.) What would be the dialing rule then? That confusion has been eliminated. The following 202 prefixes have been moved to 703: 545(?), 692, 693, 695, 696, 697 and 746. One old Pentagon prefix, 202-694, could not be moved because there already is a 703-694 prefix in Stuart, Virginia. A new Pentagon prefix, 703-602, was opened, presumably to absorb the users booted off of 694. Previously, the Pentagon was its own Rate Area for billing purposes. Now that its Area Code is the same as the surrounding county, it may be moved into the Alexandria-Arlington Rate Area. The new 602 prefix is already listed in the Northern Virginia and DC directories as Alexandria-Arlington. To test whether the move was complete, sample Pentagon prefixes were dialed from both 703 and 202 phones (all local) as both 7 and 10 digits. As of 30 June 1990, none of the sample Pentagon prefixes could be reached by dialing 202-NXX-XXXX from Virginia but all of them could be reached by dialing 703-NXX-XXXX from Washington, DC. All could be reached by dialing just seven digits from either place since that is still allowed until October. Dialing 703-694 from a DC phone produces an immediate, "you must first dial a 1" intercept without even waiting for the last four digits. 1-703-694-XXXX would be the correct way to dial Stuart. Presumably, 202-694 will be closed, if it isn't already, or kept for some other purpose. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822-2633
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (07/10/90)
A recent message in telecom from Greg Monti said that the Pentagon picked up offices which used to be in Washington, thus (sometime way back) it was given DC instead of Virginia prefixes. What place name will be used for the Pentagon prefixes which have now been put in area 703? Switching from Washington to Arlington/Alexandria would cause some changes in the fringes of the calling area. From the prefixes (other than DC & Baltimore metro) in the Maryland fringes such as Gaithersburg and Laurel, DC is local but Virginia is long distance. And a previous message from me in telecom notes that, despite the (soon to go away?) ability to make long distance calls to all-but- outermost Va. & Md. suburbs using area code 202, the already-working NPA+7D scheme for local DC-area calls will permit area 202 to be used only for DC prefixes. I noticed that this NPA+7D can be used even in one's own NPA in DC-area local calls. Please correct me if any of this is wrong: The Pentagon was already reachable as 7D in those extended-area calls from "Prince William" area. (Stuart is way down near the North Carolina border, so there is no danger of prefix duplication involving 694.) The extended-area calls the other way around now are dialed as 1+703+7D from the Pentagon (they are long distance from DC proper), and could LATER be reduced to 7, not 10, digits, given that the Pentagon prefixes are now in 703 area.
schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil (Jeffrey M. Schweiger) (07/13/90)
In article <9478@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 07-Jul-1990 1858) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 468, Message 2 of 8 > From: Greg Monti > Date: 6 July 1990 > Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 >Prefixes of the Pentagon-Department of Defense telephone Rate Area >have been moved from Area Code 202 to Area Code 703. [deleted] >The following 202 prefixes have been moved to 703: 545(?), 692, 693, >695, 696, 697 and 746. One old Pentagon prefix, 202-694, could not be >moved because there already is a 703-694 prefix in Stuart, Virginia. >A new Pentagon prefix, 703-602, was opened, presumably to absorb the >users booted off of 694. While I don't know the rationale for the creation of the 703-602 DOD prefix, it was not to absorb the users from 694. 703-602 seems to have been created using some of the users of 202-692, and additionally had a new Autovon prefix established (332- , where the 692 prefix was Autovon 222). Regarding what happens to the 202-694 users, I quote the following from a Navy newsletter: "Effective 1 October 1990, all (202) 694-XXXX DOD telephone numbers will be changed to (703) 614-XXXX. This is necessary because local Washington Metropolitan area telephone companies are instituting new dialing procedures to provide for future residential and business growth. AUTOVON prefixes will not be affected. You may still dial AUTOVON 224-XXXX for all new (703) 614-XXXX commercial numbers." Jeff Schweiger Standard Disclaimer CompuServe: 74236,1645 Internet (Milnet): schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 25-Jul-1990 1347) (07/26/90)
From: Greg Monti: 23-JUL-1990 18:31:00.66 Subj: Re: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 Carl Moore recently asked, regarding this thread, whether the Pentagon's local calling area, especially to the north into Maryland, would change at all as a result of the area code change. Test calls were made to 703 Pentagon prefixes (with the 703 appended, but not a "1") from the Gaithersburg, Ashton and Laurel rate areas, without depositing money, from true C&P of Maryland pay phones. Unlike COCOTs, C&P pay phones allow one to verify, without depositing money, whether a call is local by dialing it as if it were local and listening for the intercept message. If you get the "call cannot be completed as dialed" or the "you must first dial a 1" intercepts, the call is toll from that pay phone. If you get the "a 25 cent deposit is required before dialing this call" message, it's local. From all three rate areas I got the 25-cent message, indicating that Pentagon is local from Gaithersburg, Ashton and Laurel. This appears to represent an improved local calling area from the Pentagon, not a shrinking of it. If the Northern Virginia white pages local calling area tables can be believed, Laurel used to be toll from Pentagon and it's local now. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633