telecom@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Patrick Townson) (11/11/88)
There have been questions from readers recently about the exact nature of the 312/708 split set for next year. 312 will serve ONLY the city of Chicago. The newly created 708 will serve all the suburban communities which are presently in 312. 815 will retain its present boundaries; i.e. roughly Joliet/Wilmington/Lemont IL on its northeast corner and McHenry/Fox Lake, IL as the eastern boundary further north. Aurora will be the western edge of the new 708 area. This is intended to give just a rough idea of the boundary. 708 will be unique in that it will be the only area code in the United States broken into three distinct parts not separated by a waterway. One part of 708 will be completely surrounded on all sides by 312. On the far south side of Chicago, a tiny piece of 312 will protrude out into 708. The 312/708 division will literally follow the boundary lines of the city of Chicago, and those boundary lines are very ragged and irregular in some parts of the northwest side of the city. For example, two independent villages are located within the city of Chicago: Harwood Heights and Norridge, IL. Both will be 708. The area between Ohare Airport (considered part of the city of Chicago but not geographically connected to the city proper) and the towns of Des Plaines, IL and Park Ridge, IL will be especially strange. An unincorporated area called 'Norwood Township' is now partly served by Illinois Bell and partly served by Centel. Some phones there will be 312, and others will be 708. I think Chicago is the only city in the United States to have two actual telephone operating companies within the city limits. While Illinois Bell has almost the entire city, a tiny section of the northwest side is served by Des Plaines based Central Telephone Company (Centel). Centel will now have most of its exchanges in 708, but a few in 312. The Illinois Bell central office known as Chicago-Newcastle will actually have prefixes for *both* area codes in the same office, as will Centel, which will have both area codes in its office on Minor Street in Des Plaines which serves its relative handful of Chicago subscribers. No decision has yet been reached on the two or three prefixes which overlap the city and suburbs. One such prefix on the city's west side, in the Chicago-Austin central office reaches out like a finger into a small sliver in the town of Cicero, IL. There will be a three month grace period, during which calls between 312 and 708 will be honored with seven digits, but with a short recorded announcement forced on the line reminding the caller, 'in the future, dial 1, plus 708, and the desired number.' Then there will be approximatly a six month period in which no new exchanges will be created in either area code which currently exist in the other area code. About a year following the actual split, the separation will be considered official and final. The first phase of the split is scheduled to begin midway through 1989. Patrick Townson
Lynn.ElSegundo@Xerox.COM (11/15/88)
Re: "I think Chicago is the only city in the United States to have two actual telephone operating companies within the city limits." Not true. The suburb of Los Angeles that I live in (Fountain Valley) is split into a General Tel and a Pacific Tel area. I believe that this also occurs in many other nearby cities, including Los Angeles itself. Since the city boundaries of Los Angeles and its more than 100 suburb cities have changed frequently, it would have been extremely impractical to keep the division between General and Pacific from crossing some cities. /Don Lynn
stevem@vector.uucp (Steven A. Minneman) (11/22/88)
In telecom-v08i0177m04@vector.UUCP> telecom@bu-cs.BU.EDU (P. Townson) writes: >X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp (USENET Telecom Moderator) >X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 8, issue 177, message 4 > >... >I think Chicago is the only city in the United States to have two actual >telephone operating companies within the city limits. Although this article otherwise provided good info, this statement is untrue. I know of at least one such other city. Novato, Ca in Marin county is on the southern border of GTE territory. The northern half of Novato is served by GTE as part of 415 and the southern half of Novato is served by Pacific Bell (also area code 415). Interestingly, the remainder of the GTE territory in this part of the state is 707 area code; however, in order to keep Novato all in the same area code, this part of GTE's service area is 415.