WASHINGTON-Connecticut won a two-year fight to implement a specific area code for wireless and certain other phone numbers.
The Federal Communications Commission said the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control could establish a separate area code for wireless and other non-geographic services.
The new area code, which will overlay the current 203 and 860 area codes, will apply only to new wireless subscribers. The overlay can only be used for wireless phone numbers for three years. After that, the area code must be opened to all telecom users.
Wireless carriers will be required to return numbers in the 203 and 860 area codes that have not been used. The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau also must approve Connecticut’s implementation plan before the new code can be established.
Connecticut has been a leader in the fight against the wireless industry to establish service-specific overlays and technology-specific area code overlays. Until 2001, the FCC had ruled against states, including Connecticut, wanting to establish these special area codes. The wireless industry believes it is discriminatory to allow overlays specifically for wireless phone numbers.
Connecticut asked the FCC for the overlay in 2001. That it took more than two years for the agency to respond to Connecticut’s request concerned FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. “I sincerely hope that other states that follow the path Connecticut blazes here receive a speedier and less conditional response from the FCC.”
State regulators like the concept of technology-specific overlays because they believe it will conserve numbers in already-established area codes. The wireless industry believes that a wireless-specific area code alerts people that they are dialing a wireless device and that some people who may not want others to know they are using such a device will not sign up for wireless service.
In addition, the wireless industry is concerned about the identity some people have with area codes. An episode of TV show “Seinfeld” dealt with this identity issue when one of the characters was given a New York telephone number not in the traditional 212 area code.
