IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

For Immediate Release / May 3, 2002

Case No. GNR-T-00-36

Contact: Gene Fadness (208) 334-0339

Idaho won’t need second area code for several years

BOISE – Idaho telephone users don’t have to worry about changing their telephone numbers to accommodate a new area code for several years.

The federal government has accepted the argument of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission that Idaho does not need an additional area code if a plan to conserve phone numbers already available under the existing 208 area code was more quickly implemented.

“This was a major win for all Idahoans,” said Commission President Paul Kjellander. “Here’s an example where a common-sense solution actually prevailed.”

Kjellander praised the commission’s staff for its effort. “Our staff was extremely aggressive in pursuing a numbers conservation plan and building a very legitimate case before the FCC,” Kjellander said. He also thanked Idaho’s governor, congressional delegation and legislators for their assistance in the case.

Last May, an administrator appointed by the Federal Communications Commission notified the commission that the 208 area code would run out of telephone numbers during the third quarter of 2003.

In response, the commission took more than 300 written comments and conducted four public hearings statewide on the best way to bring area code relief in Idaho.

Following those hearings, the commission ruled that with numbers conservation, Idaho does not need a new area code. Currently, numbers are assigned to telecommunications providers in 10,000-number blocks. The result is that many telecommunications companies tie up 10,000 numbers but actually use only a very few of them. Idaho PUC staff estimated that there could be as many as 5.7 million numbers in the state claimed by telecommunication providers but not in use.

This year, the FCC has targeted key metropolitan areas for “number pooling,” or breaking down those 10,000-number blocks into 1,000-number blocks. However, the Boise metropolitan area was not scheduled for number pooling until March of 2003, two months after mandatory dialing for a new area code was supposed to begin. The Idaho commission filed a petition with the FCC to move the Boise area ahead in the pooling rollout schedule. This week the FCC announced that the Boise metropolitan area could begin number pooling this summer.

In another numbers conservation effort, PUC staff has been able to reclaim prefixes tied up by telecommunication companies but not in use.

The result is a delay in the need for a second area code for perhaps as long as eight years, said Joe Cusick, who heads up the PUC’s telecommunications section.

In the event that the FCC did not accept Idaho’s numbers conservation plan, the commission petitioned federal regulators to allow the state be split into three geographic regions with an area code assigned to each region. That was the preferred option of a significant number of Idahoans who submitted written testimony and testified at hearings across the state.