BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Fingers may soon have to do a little bit more walking to call friends and neighbors in Northern Kentucky.
A petition filed with the Kentucky Public Service Commission starts the process that will add a new area code for the eastern half of the state and require dialing 10 digits to telephone people in the year 2000.
The new code would provide a needed supplement for the nearly maxed-out 606 area. Growth in population, cellular phones, pagers, modems and fax machines has necessitated the new area code, not to mention automated teller machines and debit card readers at stores.
"The more of those types of conveniences that come into our lives, whether we realize it or not, require a telephone line," said Roger Werth, director of network architecture planning for Cincinnati Bell.
An area code can have a maximum of 792 prefixes before it must be split. Each prefix has 10,000 possibilities.
Approval of the request would give Kentucky its fourth area code and would let people with 606 numbers keep them.
The plan filed Friday with the Kentucky PSC on behalf of telecommunications providers in the 606 area code calls for a transition period beginning Oct. 1, 1999, during which people could call using either seven or 10 digits. Mandatory 10-digit dialing as well as the introduction of a new code would be on or about April 3, 2000, Mr. Werth said.
New numbers given out after that time would be in the new area code, which has not been announced.
Dialing 10-digits would take getting used to, he said, but so did changes in the past from four digits to seven.
"This is just kind of the evolution of that," Mr. Werth said. Cincinnati's 513 area code is expected to last until the middle of 2004, thanks to the addition of a Dayton area code.
Until 513 runs out, people in Cincinnati could still use seven digits within that area code. But people calling from southwestern Ohio to Northern Kentucky and vice versa would have to use 10 digits. The PSC approved a second area code just last month to supplement the 502 in the western half of the state.
Beginning in April, people in the 502 area code and people with the new 270 area code will have to dial 10 digits to make a call.
Everyone with a 502 number keeps it, while people getting new numbers beginning in April will be assigned the 270 area code, said Matthew Rhody, spokesman for the PSC.
"There's no reason to expect they won't approve that here," Mr. Werth said.
The Enquirer reported in June that the extra area code would be needed and that within three years seven-digit dialing between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky would no longer be possible because of the demand in both areas for more prefixes.
The telecommunications industry's request was made to the PSC by the North American Numbering Plan Administration, a division of Lockheed Martin that oversees area codes in the United States, its territories, Canada, Bermuda and many Caribbean nations. A hearing date has not been set, Mr. Rhody said.
Dialing 10 digits won't turn local calls into long-distance calls.
"If it's local today, it's local tomorrow," Mr. Werth said.
