So last night, we I went to a hearing in Carlsbad about the new area code switch. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, not many of us did, but they are running out of 760 area codes and decided to change a bunch of us in North County to 442. There are many problems with this switch especially for small business owners like ourselves.
Apparently a bunch of people found out about it (we should have heard about it from the start but I think they were trying to make this a quick and smooth change and we’d just find out about it when it happened) and complained. The utilities commission agreed it probably wasn’t fair especially since we just changed our area code from 619 in 1997. So they had a hearing last night where you could talk to the board and give your reasons for wanting an overlay instead. An overlay would allow for all current 760 users to keep their code and any new phone numbers would incorporate the 442 number.
I think the overlay is the best way to handle the situation. Times have changed, the idea of an “area” code no longer represents an area. I have friends with all sorts of area codes living all over San Diego. We’re all used to having to dial 10 digits and mostly just have numbers saved in our cell phones anyway. This change would affect a lot of people, small and large business, and it is mostly just a hassle for most people and completely unnecessary! So if you hear of any more hearings, please support the overlay and attend!
Click here for more information and for what you can do about it. They’ll be making a decision soon. Don’t let the utilities commission boss us around, why should we have to change our number again??
8 replies on “Area code 442 vs. 760”
yeah, heard about this about a month ago and was pretty bummed. i don’t want to change again, and yes, 10 digits isn’t more of a hassle than 7 since our phones do all the hard work for us.>>dumb….
update!!>>I guess going to hearings works! I think the verdict is going to be overlay and we won’t have to change our area code, yippee!>>http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/16/business/z1b590ecb7914a551882574c6006cf7f9.txt
The overlay is nothing to be happy about. We would then be dialing 11 digits on all local calls. 1 + 760 + 7 digit number. Speed dialers take care of some of this but for dialing new numbers you have to dial 11 digits.
anonymous – most people have cell phones these days and can save all the numbers there. I would much rather enter new phone numbers at 11 digits each one time, than have to go through and change all the 760 numbers over. Besides, many of the people that I meet these days already have a different area code and it won’t make much of a difference.
I can understand how the overlay is helpful to those of you who live in urban areas, but way up here in the rural areas using 760 (you know, where cell phones are just fancy paperweights like in Trona) would actually have to remember and physically dial 10 digits every time we wanted to call the guy across the street. I could care less if we were the one’s switching to 442, but this is freaking ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to dial 11 digits to talk to a neighbor any more than you should have to update all your business cards, but in all fairness it’s easier for you to update the numbers in your fancy auto-dialing phones and change the 3 digits on your web site than it is for all of us retirees, hicks, and even the decent hard working people from the po-dunk areas north of y’all to remember all the extra numbers and physically dial them. Seriously, there should be some way we can compromise, perhaps you can do the overlay for your urban areas and we can get just 1 lousy area code for our rural areas. Is that really so much to ask for?
I agree, it would be nice to have one thing where you are and another in the urban areas. I guess the problem is that in most cases majority rules. Why should hundreds of thousands of people have to change instead of hundreds. Plus with the overlay, it only affects people who get a new number or are new to the area…if you and your friends don’t plan on changing numbers, you don’t have to worry about it. Even more, you keep mentioning this “neighbor” that you would have to dial 11 digits for but you could just walk to their house too. It might be easier for us to update numbers in our “fancy” cell phones but for anyone with a business, it’s much more than that and much more than just ordering new business cards. I would have to go online to wherever I’m listed and change info (which is lots of places and we’re only a year old as a business) and potentially go back to former customers and change the info they have for us in case they want to pass our number along. The overlay is great, nothing needs to change and we can all handle adding a couple numbers to call some people…
Actually, some think that with an overlay nothing needs to be changed. There are many auto-dialers out there such as burglar alarms that call a local number to a monitoring station. They will need to reprogram thousands of those. With the area code split that wouldn’t be a problem since we would still have 7 digit dialing on local calls. That’s just one small example, there are many situations that can’t be known until and if the overlay happens.>>For people with a small business, getting new business cards if far less of a hassle then returning all of your business calls every day by dialing 11 digits. When you return all those calls from one-time contacts it’s a lot of extra wasted time.
Anonymous->>I think you have the whole thing backwards. If they did an area code SPLIT, they would change a bunch of 760 numbers to 442 and depending on where they draw that line, you would have to dial 11 digits to call your neighbor or have to redo a bunch of burglar alarms etc..etc..etc…>>With the overlay, NOTHING CHANGES! People who just sign up to get a cell phone will receive a new number 442 or someone who just moves into town will get a new number. Or if there is a new burglar alarm company, they might have the new number but anything that is already around with 760 won’t change. And if people don’t plan on changing their number, they will always get to keep 760. >>Honestly, I think you got the whole thing backwards because what you just described as a hassle is what would happen if we split! Many people didn’t hear that our numbers might change and I think those people might remain ignorant because of how incredibly hassle-free the overlay is. They might notice a new area code when getting a new friend’s number but that’s about it…