Telephone Overlays

[Duncan Palmatier <dpalm@earthlink.net>]

Dear Visionaries:

All Idahoans must fight tooth and nail to prevent an area code "overlay"
in the state.  The proposal before the Idaho Public Utilities Commission
is to have area codes be assigned not geographically but by chance,
depending on when one gets a new phone number.   (Idahonian, p. 3A,
Jan.15, 2001)  This means that neighbors have completely different area
codes from each other.  It means that every time you write down
someone's phone number,  you are obliged to write down an area code
along with the number.  It means that you must dial 1 plus an area code
with every number you dial.  That's an extra four numbers every time you
dial your neighbor, your child's school,  your grocer, your spouse at
work.  Even when you dial your own home when you are out around the
corner, you have to dial those extra four numbers, just as if you were
dialing to Nome, Alaska or New York City.

The idea behind the overlay is that people won't be inconvenienced by
having to change their area code on their stationery, as they will if
the area code is changed geographically.  But the one-time inconvenience
– considerable though it may be – of changing one's area code is nothing
compared with the daily inconvenience of dealing with the extra
numbers.  The overlay idea was tried in Southern California, where
people seem not to mind many inconveniences in daily life that would
drive most Idahoans over the brink.  But even Southern Californians
rejected the overlay system as unworkable and appalling.  After about a
year the overlay system was dropped.   

And there is another point as well.  We are becoming a more electronic
society (which is what necessitates the new area code in Idaho). 
Computers and electronics are notorious for contributing to feelings of 
physical isolation, alienation and ultimately depression.  An overlay
system greatly heightens that sense of alienation.  The message is that
one's neighbors are so far away that they're in another area code.  
Those four extra numbers are four extra spaces between people.  They 
contribute to the sense that we are just isolated units, wrapped in
layers of plastic cords and electrical fields.   The overlay pretends
that the e-world takes precedence over the geographic world and the
local physical community.   That's the opposite of the approach we've
taken here on the Palouse, where we have united the Moscow and Pullman
communities by dropping the area codes even when we are in separate
states.  And most of us still just use the "2-XXXX" or "3-XXXX" notation
for our phone numbers!

Even if you don't agree with my loftier analysis, you can believe me
that the day-to-day inconvenience added by those three numbers will be a
constant annoyance that you'll never really get used to.   I was in
Southern California during their failed experiment in overlays. 

By the way, there is a third solution to the area code problem: faxes
and/or cell phones could be in one area code, and regular phones in
another.  That might have the additional benefit of preventing the
irritation caused by accidently dialing a fax number and getting
assaulted by the ear-searing screech of the fax machine.   

I am urging my neighbors and representatives to fight this overlay
system.  I think there is some economic advantage to the phone companies
to do an overlay system.  I don't begrudge them profit, but not at such
a high price.  You can contact the PUC.  They prefer electronic
communication, of course, by fax at 208 334 3762 or on the web at
puc.state.id.us, and push the comments button.  It wouldn't hurt to
contact state representatives, either.  My Californian friends think
that overlay plan wasn't killed until high mucky-mucks became annoyed at
dealing with all the numbers.

                                        
                                                Monique C. Lillard