Published: December 01, 2008 10:28 am      

Officials worry public might not be prepared for area code change

With only three months remaining before West Virginians must dial 10 digits, even for local calls, a study shows 40 percent of callers are still dialing only seven digits.

"I'm real concerned that people don't realize this is nigh upon us," said Carolyn Barr, a vice president at Citynet. Barr is a member of the committee that is guiding the state's transition to two area codes.

"Of particular concern to me are the alarm companies," she said. "If they are using dialers that are programmed with seven digits, they will all need to be reprogrammed or the calls will fail. The elderly who use devices that have pre-programmed speed-dial buttons are also a concern. I don't know if their age group realizes what needs to happen within the next 90 to 120 days.

"I'm probably attuned to this because I have an 85-year-old mother; she does everything with speed-dial. If I don't reprogram her phone, on March 1 it's going to say, 'Your call cannot be completed.'"

The state is currently in a "permissive dialing" period, which started on July 26 and runs through Feb. 28. During this period, carriers must provide customers with the option of either seven- or 10-digit dialing. As of March 1, customers will be required to dial 10 digits. If they don't, they'll get a recording and their call won't go through.

It's all part of the so-called "overlay" plan approved by the state Public Service Commission in February. Something had to be done because the inventory of phone numbers that can be issued with one area code, 304, is running out.

The state has been assigned an additional area code, 681. After March 1, existing customers who have a phone number with a 304 area code will keep it. New telephone customers in West Virginia will be assigned phone numbers with the 681 area code.

Barr said Verizon checked calls through switching gear at Lewisburg, Logan and Parkersburg a few weeks ago.

"They found that 40-percent plus were still dialing seven digits as opposed to 10," she said. "That's OK -- we're still in the so-called 'permissive' period. But we had hoped that this close to December, we would see more people acclimating to 10 digits.

"When you see that 40 percent are not dialing 10 digits, it has to be an education issue," Barr said. "They just aren't aware they can begin right now or that they should begin to create new habits."

Telephone carriers and other providers have either notified customers of the upcoming change or plan to do so in the weeks ahead.

"My greatest concerns are those people who use speed-dial at their businesses or on their personal phones or who have speed-dial on their fax machines or have alarm systems which are preprogrammed to dial a local number," Barr said. "All of those scenarios can be preprogrammed to 10 digits at this time. Otherwise we'll get down to the deadline and they won't know what's wrong when the call fails. The permissive dialing period allows us to make the changes at this time and begin creating the new habit of dialing 10 digits."

If a customer has to contact their alarm company to reprogram their automatic dialer, "by doing it earlier they'll avoid waiting in line to be serviced," she said.

Local customers of the Harry Jarrett & Co. security firm on the West Side must have their systems changed to 10 digits because customers reach the company's central station by direct dialing a local number.

James Poe, a Harry Jarrett & Co. security consultant, said many customers' automatic dialers are being changed during routine maintenance calls. "We started as early as they would allow us -- July 26," Poe said. "We're about 60 percent finished."

A few burglar and fire alarms that were 10 to 12 years old had to be overhauled so they could dial a 10-digit number, he said. On the other hand, "some newer equipment has upload-download capabilities with remote programming," Poe said. "With the customer's permission, we can do the change and not have to visit the customer's location."

Harry Jarrett & Co. has not normally been charging to make the change. When it has had to replace equipment it has been doing so at cost. "Customers are hard to get and we like to keep them," Poe said.

Asked to rate the hassle level of the change on a scale of one to 10 with one being the least hassle and 10 being the most, Poe said, "Doing this on a regularly scheduled call would be a 'one.' As we get closer to the drop-dead date, then things heat up a little bit. It'll probably be a 'five' or 'six.' At this point it has not caused us any hardships."

Mitch Brozik, president of Secure US in Morgantown, said all of his company's customers have equipment programmed to dial an 800 number, "so we're not going to have a problem."

However, when a burglar alarm goes off and Secure US is notified, the company's personnel call the owner before dispatching the proper authorities. Therefore, the company must verify that it has the correct phone number -- including area code -- for all of its customers.

Most customers give the company several numbers so when they are on vacation a neighbor, relative, friend or employee can go with the authorities to check the premises. Secure US will do all it can to make sure it has the correct area codes for all of the people on a customer's response list, Brozik said.

"A big key to us is, we can only use the information our customers provide us," he said. "A lot of times people move, managers move. It's very important people keep the proper information updated."