As Evanston residents and business prepare to switch to 11-digit dialing in January, Evanston/Skokie School District 65 administrators continue to iron out plans for an enhanced telephone system.
When the district tried to request additional phone lines to its classrooms, Ameritech told administrators that the new numbers might not have 847 area codes because of an impending area code overlay, said Clifford Cox, D65’s coordinator of computer services.
Starting Jan. 5, customers in the 847 area code must dial 11 digits to make local and long distance calls, which will accommodate the overlay of a new 224 area code.
The district is adding a direct line to each of its classrooms to provide better communication between teachers and parents and within the district, Cox said.
The direct lines are “an enhancement to school security,” and will provide 911 capability in each classroom, Cox said.
This feature would allow local authorities to trace the specific classroom from which an emergency phone call was placed without the caller ever having to say a word, he said.
Cox said the lines could be used for incoming calls before and after the school day, but they would be unable to ring during class time to avoid distracting students and teachers.
An overlay in the current 847 area code region, which encompasses Evanston, means existing phone numbers will not be changed, but anyone requesting a new number will be given the new area code, Ameritech spokesman Aaron Schoenherr said.
It will take about two weeks to phase-out seven-digit dialing. According to Ameritech’s Web site, the new dialing pattern will not affect call pricing.
The shortage of available 847 numbers is a result of an increase in demand for phone lines, Cox said.
People now request numbers for cell phones, fax lines, house lines and the Internet at a higher rate, said Daniel R. Hirsch, the president of Northshore Mobile Werks, a retailer for Cingular Wireless.
Also, there was a noticeable increase in cell phone purchases after Sept. 11, said Jim Gernady, manager of Radio Shack, 716 Church St., which sells Sprint PCS phones.
“(Customers) would rather have two phone lines than for people to get the busy signal,” Gernady said.
Because telephone companies are assigned numbers in blocks, the company must look at relief plans once these numbers begin to run out.
According to the Ameritech Web site, the telephone number registry company NeuStar handles the assignment of area codes, prefixes and other telephone codes in Illinois.
When a phone company begins to run out of numbers for a given area code, NeuStar must decide whether to use an overlay or a geographic split to solve the problem.
A geographic split would require some telephone users in the area to change their area code.
One example of this type of solution was when Chicago’s 312 and 708 area codes were divided. In 1996, the 708 area code was split into 708 for the southern Chicago suburbs, 630 for the central suburbs and 847 for the northern suburbs. In 1997, the 312 area code was reserved for downtown central Chicago, while 773 was given to the remainder of the city.
When a new code is assigned, telephone networks and equipment worldwide — faxes, phones, pagers, modems and any automatic dialing equipment — must be reprogrammed to recognize the new area code.
