By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
10-18-2008

It’s official: Inyo County residents will be required to dial 10 digits to call one another and new phone numbers will be given a 442 area code, rather than the current 760 prefix.
The change, not official until fall of 2009, comes as a result of the California Public Utilities Commission deciding this week to institute an overlay on the heavily saturated 760 area code, used from Mono County to San Diego.
The commission came to a final decision on Thursday, when it reviewed comments from residents in the 760 area code region, both in support of the overlay and in support of the commission’s first decision to implement a geographic split of the 760 area.
“I think this decision is a mistake,” Fourth District Inyo County Supervisor Jim Bilyeu said Friday. “It’s a reversal of their original decision,”
The CPUC adopted a geographic split to address the projected shortage of available telephone numbers in the 760 area code at a meeting in April.

Shortly after the commission voted 4-1 in favor of a geographic split, which would have saddled residents of San Diego County with a new, 442 area code, a coalition of businesses, chambers of commerce, government officials and residents from the proposed 442 area code asked the CPUC to reconsider.
“In making the initial decision to split the 760 area code, the CPUC listened to the residents and elected officials who provided comment on the issue, most of whom preferred a split,” said CPUC President Michael R. Peevey. “Only after the initial decision was issued did we hear from more businesses and residents. It now appears that more people prefer an overlay and feel it would be less burdensome.”
The CPUC held two public hearings, one in Victorville and one in Carlsbad, to hear comments from everyone who would be affected by an overlay.

According to a statement from the CPUC, “at the hearings the overcharging theme was that changing the area code would impose substantial costs on businesses for advertising, documents, products, as well as lost customers when they are unable to reach businesses, and that residential customers would suffer lost contacts from friends and family when the 760 area code would no longer be effective for their telephone numbers.”
Second District Inyo County Supervisor Susan Cash attended the meeting in Victorville to express concerns and share comments from Inyo County citizens.
She essentially made the case that an overlay would cause inconvenience for all residents within the 760 area, whereas the split that was approved in April would have affected only those responsible for the growth.
Cash also said that Inyo County turned out en masse to support the proposed split in April, and many were unaware that the issue had been reopened.
Her comments and those of other Inyo County residents paled in comparison to the numbers from Southern California at the Carlsbad meeting.
Not to mention those submitted by phone companies and service providers themselves.
“Written responses in support of the petition for modification were submitted by Verizon California, Inc., AT&T California, Verizon Wireless, Telscape Communications, Inc., Sprint Nextel Corporation and Cox Communications,” the CPUC said. “The responses reiterated the major themes of the petition; namely, that an overlay is preferred because ti would be less expensive for customers to implement and would allow all to retain their existing telephone number and area code.”
“Based on comments and weighing the cost to implement a geographic split against the burden of 10-digit dialing for an overlay, the CPUC determined that on overlay is warranted,” Peevey said.
After considering the comments, the CPUC voted to grant the petition for modification, which will require all residents within the 760 area code to dial 10 digits for every call.
“I think its a poor decision. What they’re doing is punishing the rural areas when all the growth is down south,” Bilyeu said.
The overlay is scheduled to go into effect Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009. Residents may begin voluntarily using the 10-digit dialing system beginning Saturday, Oct. 24.
“As the lone dissenter to the initial decision, I am gratified that my fellow commissioners have supported the modification,” said Commissioner Timothy Alan Simon. “This decision correctly recognizes that, with modern technologies and human behavioral trends, overlays are the most logical and reasonable response to area code exhaust.”
Supervisor Cash was unavailable for comment Friday.