Code blue

It's one thing to run out of clean socks and underwear, but to run out of telephone numbers? Talk about a disaster.

By creating new area codes, doling out phone numbers slowly and reclaiming unused numbers, federal and state regulators are working to forestall an industrial Armageddon: The Day the Phone Numbers Run Out, projected to occur sometime during the next 50 years.

The regulators must strike a delicate balance. On one hand, they must provide enough new phone numbers to keep competition and innovation alive. On other hand, they must conserve a finite resource. They must also make sure any solutions don't cause customers too much cost or inconvenience.

Although new area codes continue to be created, regulators seem more intent on conservation. Numbering experts say it's too early to judge which methods work best, but they note the need for new area codes has slowed in recent years.

“There's a lot of subjective judgment but not a lot of objective analysis” of conservation efforts, said John R. Hoffman, a retired Sprint executive who until recently headed the North American Numbering Council, a group that advises the FCC on numbering issues.

One thing is clear: The demand for new phone numbers is growing. The need comes in part from new competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), a proliferation of cellular phones and other wireless devices and demand for second lines for data services. But an inefficient numbering system also is to blame.

“Exhaust is driven not necessarily by new services and lines but by the way numbers are assigned,” said Norman Epstein, moderator of the Industry Numbering Committee, an industry group that helps set technical standards.

About 5 billion of 8 billion nonreserved phone numbers are left, Hoffman estimated.

Under the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) — AT&T's 1947 design that set the current 10-digit dialing format for routing and rating calls — new phone numbers are given out in blocks of 10,000 per rate center. As the number of new carriers and rate centers rises, more phone numbers are needed to serve the same population.

The problem is that many unused phone numbers are locked up because a carrier serving only 1000 lines still gets 10,000 numbers. “Two or three competitors coming into a state can wipe out all of the area codes,” said Michael O'Connor, Verizon's director of federal regulatory policy and planning.

One answer is thousands-block number pooling in which new blocks of numbers are given out 1000 at a time. The FCC has authorized about 30 states to run pooling trials and plans a mandatory national rollout after it chooses a company — likely to be either NANP Administrator NeuStar or Telcordia Technologies — to run the program. A decision is expected by late summer.

For now, all wireless carriers get 10,000-number blocks and are exempt from pooling trials because they aren't capable of local number portability (LNP), which makes 1000-number blocks possible, experts said. The FCC has ordered many wireless devices to be LNP-capable by November 2002. Wireline carriers must implement LNP in the top 100 markets by November.

States with pooling trials underway say they've extended the time before new area codes are needed. “The initial results are promising,” said Adam Newman, senior pooling administrator for Telcordia, which runs trials in six states.

Maine, for example, has been able to stick with one area code, 207, since getting the FCC's approval in 1999 to do a pooling trial. As a result, state residents kept seven-digit dialing for in-state calls, and businesses avoided the cost of printing signs and stationery with new phone numbers, said a spokesman for the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Number of area codes in NANP: 800

NANP area codes in service: 281

U.S. area codes in service: 248

Number of new area codes announced but not yet in service: 58

Number of area codes in jeopardy: 73

Source: NeuStar

In California, which has 25 area codes, “we projected that if we didn't take drastic measures, there would be 41 [area codes] by the end of 2002,” said Mary Jo Borak, senior analyst at the state PUC. Conservation measures have helped, and the state hasn't gotten a new area code since last year.

The problem isn't just movie stars on cell phones, it's too many unused numbers. State PUC studies showed between 3.8 million and 5 million numbers going unused among the almost 8 million numbers in each area code examined.

California has turned to many solutions, Borak said. The state conducted four number pooling trials last year and plans 10 more this year. It reclaims blocks of 1000 numbers from carriers that use fewer than 100 of those numbers. According to Newman, several thousand central office area codes have been returned in reclamations nationwide.

More controversial is California's use of rationing through which it awards new numbers in 21 area codes to carriers during monthly lotteries. This practice has caused some grumbling among losing CLECs eager to begin and expand service, said Tiki Gaugler, a regulatory attorney at the Association for Local Telecommunications Services.

Other moves to conserve numbers include the consolidation of rate centers and thresholds of number usage before new numbers can be assigned. The FCC in December ordered carriers to use 60% of their assigned numbers — to rise to 75% by 2004 — before asking for more numbers.

In general, CLECs don't have a problem getting the numbers they need to operate, Gaugler said. Conservation efforts haven't hurt Verizon's ability to offer new services either, O'Connor said. In fact, some broadband offerings such as DSL could help save numbers by using fewer phone lines.

Regulators acknowledge that current number conservation efforts only delay the inevitable expansion of the NANP. “Instead of having 10 digits, we'll have 11 or 12 digits,” Epstein said. And maybe more, other experts said.

Any new system is likely to be a costly and complicated fix that involves nothing less than reprogramming computers that run the entire public switched network. “The challenge is to come up with a system that won't run out of phone numbers and that's compatible with the current system,” Hoffman said.