ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512110072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Another new area code will be carved out in Virginia because of the soaring popularity of fax machines, pagers, cellular telephones and personal computers.
A telecommunications industry committee agreed Friday to create a new area code for southeastern Virginia. Just six months ago, a new area code was established for the western part of the state.
``The first reason for doing this is technology,'' said Paul Miller, a spokesman for the committee. ``People are using a lot more telephone numbers now.''
Demand for new phone numbers is expected to grow even faster next year when Virginia opens local telephone exchanges to competition. ``The industry has to be ready to meet that demand,'' Miller said.
Central and eastern Virginia now share the 804 area code. Of the 756 exchanges - the first three digits of a phone number - in the 804 area, only about 130 remain unused. A single exchange can contain as many as 10,000 phone numbers.
Miller said the rate of using new exchanges used to be 20 to 30 a year. ``It's now running roughly 50 a year and rising,'' he said.
The telecommunications panel discussed the declining availability of phone numbers during a two-day meeting in Richmond. The team decided central Virginia will retain the 804 area code, and a new number will be assigned to southeastern Virginia.
Bell Communications Research Inc. will assign the new number within 60 days. The number will be implemented in the second half of 1996 but will be optional for at least six months, Miller said.
The boundary for the new code will begin at the North Carolina border and run northward, just west of Franklin and Williamsburg to the York River. Communities east of the line and south of the river will be in the new area code.
The state's newest area code, 540, was established last July when Western Virginia was severed from the 703 area code, which now is limited to Northern Virginia. The 540 code will become mandatory Jan. 27.
Some customers using in-house switchboards manufactured before 1992 have been forced to upgrade their software or replace their systems entirely because their equipment does not recognize area codes that have a middle digit other than 0 or 1. All of those area codes have been used, Miller said.
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