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November 25, 2002
Area Code 310 Nears Exhaustion - Harman Holds Town Meeting
To Persuade FCC To Avoid Area Code Split
-- Town meeting puts human face on pitfalls of area
code split --
El Segundo - Congresswoman Jane Harman held a town meeting today
to help put a human face on the mathematical problem of area code exhaustion.
As area code 310 continues to run out of numbers, the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) will soon have to decide if some residents of the South
Bay will be given a different 3 number area code and if every resident
of the South Bay will have to dial ten digits.
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Commissioner Michael Copps, one of the five FCC Commissioners who
will decide the fate of the 310 area code and of ten-digit dialing,
flew in from Washington, DC at the request of Congresswoman Harman
to hear from senior citizens, residents and small business owners
about the potential impact of an area code split.
"I am grateful to Commissioner Copps for coming to see first-hand
how upset this community is about this issue.
This town meeting is an opportunity for the FCC, the California
PUC, and our community to sit down at the same table and hammer
out a strategy," said Harman, who has been fighting the area
code split since her return to Congress in January 2001.
"Now we must work together to conserve 310 phone numbers so
that seniors and small businesses will not be hurt."
Approximately 75 South Bay residents attended the meeting.
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Marge Miyamura, a local senior citizen, expressed her concern about the
elderly having to learn a new area code. Many other senior citizens who
suffer from memory loss echoed this worry. Alma Martinez, President of
Friends Without Barriers, an organization that helps people living with
HIV-AIDS, explained that patients with AIDS often develop dementia, making
it extremely difficult to learn new phone numbers.
Steve Diels, a small business owner from Redondo Beach voiced his concern
stating: "My business relies on hundreds of phone numbers and would
be faced with thousands of dollars in labor costs, not to mention costs
for essentials like business cards, signs, stationery and advertising.
We have already gone from 213 to 310 to ten-digit dialing and back to
seven. We don't need an area code split."
During the meeting, California Public Utilities Commission President
Loretta Lynch and Congresswoman Harman outlined actions the FCC should
take:
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Provide a new code for items, such as hand held e-mail devices, computers
and ATM machines, where the phone number is not even known to the
user. This is called a technology overlay. Such a change will cause
less disruption for most consumers, small businesses and senior citizens.
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Change the rules concerning how a block of numbers needs to be shared
with other telecommunications companies. Now if a company uses less
than 10 percent of a block it must share the block with other companies.
A new rule would require companies to share a block if less than 25
percent of the numbers are used, freeing up more phone numbers in
the 310 area code.
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Adopt a technology overlay without going to ten-digit dialing. This
will save consumers, especially seniors and the disabled, the burden
of having to dial ten digits every time they call. And it will save
small businesses time and money in reprogramming their phones. Currently,
California law requires users throughout the state to dial only seven
digits.
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Handle California's requests within the FCC, rather than referring
them to an outside advisory committee, which would slow down the process.
Last year, legislation authored by State Senator Debra Bowen was enacted
requiring the California Public Utilities Commission to use technology
overlays unless it determines such an overlay would be more inconvenient
to telephone users than a traditional geographic area code split.
The California PUC has filed two petitions for FCC review. The public
comment period will last until December 10, 2002.
Harman will forward written and oral comments from today's meeting. Additional
comments can be sent via the FCC's Electronic
Comment Filing System and should reference CC Docket No. 99-200.
Written comments sent to Congresswoman Harman's Office, 811 N. Catalina
Ave, Suite 1302, Redondo Beach, California 90277 before December 10 will
be forwarded to the FCC.
310 News
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