Until Maine gets a second area code – predicted for 2013 – it will remain up to each cell phone company on whether their Maine customers must punch in 207 for in-state calls.
The issue came up at a hearing last week before the Legislature’s Utilities and Energy Committee. It was reviewing a bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Rosen, R-Hancock and Penobscot County, on behalf of a constituent, who said his cell phone company was now requiring him to dial 10 digits – 207 plus the number – to make in-state calls. The bill would have required cell phone providers to let customers use only seven numbers for in-state calls.
“This additional requirement has now more than doubled the amount of lost concentration and creates unnecessary fumbling just to dial a simple phone number,” said Dick Campbell of Orrington.
“The reason given for this mandate was first, Unicel had been told by the PUC to pass this on, for Maine will be getting another area code soon; and second, the rest of the country is doing it so Unicel is following the nation,” Campbell testified.
The Utilities and Energy Committee found that about half the cell companies operating in the state required 10-digit dialing while the other half allowed the number to be dialed without the 207 area code. And, in some cases, the number of digits required depended on where a customer was driving in the state.
Saying that many people already stored their most frequently called numbers under a speed-dial code, and eventually all calls would require 10 digits when Maine adds an area code, the committee voted against passage of the seven-digit requirement.
Cingular, which was represented at the committee’s hearing, said it will change its equipment to allow seven-digit dialing this year, even though the Legislature won’t require it, based on the apparent concerns of consumers.
Rosen questioned why the committee didn’t push all companies to do the same, saying the rationale that eventually the state will have to adopt a second area code is not the issue today.
“Why are they worried about that now?” he asked, quipping, “Eventually the sun’s going to stop burning.”
The North American Numbering Plan Administrator, a federal agency, has predicted a new area code was in the offing before, first saying the state would be out of available 207 numbers by June of 2000. Then it was the fourth quarter of 2001, followed by November of 2002 and then the fourth quarter of 2008.
The proliferation of cell phones, however, could make the new prediction – the third quarter of 2013 – a more realistic threat.
For the first time in 2006, the number of land lines decreased slightly to just under 775,000, while cell phones grew to 630,000.
But, sales of cell phones flattened out last year and there was no surge at Christmas, according to Albert Gervenack, director of the Emergency Services Communication Bureau, who tracks such things for the PUC.
“We haven’t seen any dramatic increases like we have for the last four years. Everybody’s children have cell phones now,” he said, adding that could all change if there’s a price war among cell company competitors.
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