Mark Robert Smith <msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu> (02/01/90)
Originally appeared in misc.consumers, and passed to TELECOM Digest
From eickmeye@alcor.usc.edu (Evan "Biff Henderson" Eickmeyer)
Subject: CA Area Code Bill
Date: 31 Jan 90 06:18:44 GMT
Organization: 1990 Rose Bowl Champions (USC), Los Angeles, California
The following article is from the Los Angeles Times, Friday, January
26, 1990, page B4.
Senate Passes Bill Limiting Area Codes
From A Times Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO -- Prompted by complaints over a new area code for Los
Angeles, legislation requiring telephone companies to respect city
boundaries when new area codes are created was unanimously passed by
the Senate on Thursday and sent to the Assembly.
Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Energy
and Public Utilities Committee, authored the legislation to force
changes in the area covered by Los Angeles' proposed 310 area code.
An aide to Rosenthal, Paul Fadelli, said the bill would not undo
the 310 area code but it could alter the present configuration. The
bill would require Pacific Bell and GTE-California to adhere as
closely as technically possible to existing city boundaries when
planning and implementing the new area code.
As proposed now, the new area code would split such communities
as Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Bell Gardens, South
Gate, Inglewood, the City of Commerce and Hawthorne. It is scheduled
to take effect in 1992 and become Los Angeles' third area code.
Rosenthal and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los
Angeles) deplored what they termed the disruptive imposition of the
proposed area code.
They said that neighbors living opposite each other on La Cienega
Boulevard, for instance, would have different area codes and that
confusion would occur for both local and long distance callers.
If an entire city could not be included in a proposed new area
code, the bill would require the telephone companies to consider an
area's geography, "community of interests," cohesiveness, integrity
and compactness of territory.
Additionally, telephone companies would be required to notify
their customers within a reasonable period of the proposed change.Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) <cmoore@brl.mil> (02/02/90)
What constitutes notice of the area code change? The insertions in people's phone bills? The notices in this Digest are very early (213/310 notice reached me Dec. 15, 1989, 2 years and 1 1/2 months before it takes effect) but this is a small and scattered audience compared to the people getting the new area code. This problem of splitting communities occurred with 213/818 split, as I recall reading. As is the case in New York City, you have to dial the area code even on local calls across NPA boundary. Notice that 212/718 split is along borough lines and is along waterways, and I am not sure that even the 213/818 split was along "natural" borders -- certainly not waterways.
deej@bellcore.bellcore.com> (02/04/90)
[reference to a California bill requiring telephone companies to respect municipal boundaries when creating new area codes deleted.] I wonder if the telcos could ignore this (or sue the state of California over it) claiming that California does not have jurisdiction? The logic is something like this: The telcos are adhering to an NPA split approved by Bellcore. Bellcore is the administrator of the North American Numbering Plan, responsible to Committee T1 of the American National Standards Institute. ANSI is, I believe, a subsidiary of the Department of Commerce. (We're getting into rather deep bureaucratic waters that I'm not familiar with here; if I'm mistaken, I'm confident someone will correct me...) The Department of Commerce is an executive branch department of the federal government, giving (by long, convoluted reasoning) the federal government jurisdiction over area codes... David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej (@ Bellcore Navesink Research & Engineering Center) "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."
ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (02/04/90)
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit association with no official government status. Marvin Sirbu CMU