New Area Code? Yeah, But…

— by Lin McNulty —

Everyone with a landline phone received a notification from our local carrier, CenturyLink, that Western Washington is getting a new area code. Not really a new area code, per se, but an overlay area code. When the changeover goes into full effect July 29, 2017 it will be necessary to always dial the area code — even when dialing someone in the same area code, even when dialing your next-door neighbor.

In the meantime, we now have seven months to remember, and forget, to dial 10-digits for each and every phone call. (Area Code+Prefix+Phone Number). Pre-programmed telephone numbers will need to be updated on your phone.

And on August 28, 2017, a new 564 area code may be assigned to new service. Changes are not anticipated for existing lines assigned to the 360 area code, other than retraining our dialing routine.

Area code 360 presently covers 18 counties of Washington and was brought into effect on January 15, 1995. Before that, all of Western Washington was area code 206.

An area code overlay occurs when more than one area code serves the same geographic area. In our case, area code 360 will also include area code 564. The 564 area code will eventually be assigned on top of all other area codes in Western Washington.  Overlaying area codes is practiced in the territories belonging to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP).

The NANP was originally devised in the 1940s by AT&T for the Bell System and independent telephone operators in North America, to unify the diverse local numbering plans that had been established in the preceding decades. AT&T continued to administer the numbering plan until the breakup of the Bell System when administration was delegated to the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA), a service that has been procured from the private sector by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States.

Between January 28 and July 29, it is recommended that you use the 10-digit number to train your dialing. And get used to it, because there’s no way around it. If you are a local landline customer, the days of sharing your phone number as a quick four-digit number (since we are presently all 360, and are all 376) will be gone forever.

I seem to recall four-digit local dialing when arriving on Orcas in the 1990s. I also remember 5-cent payphone calls. Or I could be mistaken about both of those memories .Ah, technology.