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Ken Harrison

Ken Harrison is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

More Phone Numbers, More Problems

PART TWO of the history of 760/442 area codes. . . . The 3rd speaker was the commanding general of Camp Pendelton. The squared jawed, battle-hardened Marine spoke very calmly, but with the full power of his dress uniform, knowing full well he was above the lowly bureaucrats that sat before him. He stated, sure the Marine Corp can change the area code of it's 7,000 on-base phone numbers, including data lines and top secret communication channels. They could notify the Pentagon, along with the commanders and their fighting boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which most solders came from Camp Pendleton. But then he asked, “Is that really what you want your nation's 1st Expeditionary Marine Force, now fighting two wars, to be focusing on at this time?” The Commission relented and approved the 442 over-lay, rather than making people change their phone numbers. But it didn't matter anyway, because further investigation revealed that it was some obscure, quasi-governmental, telephone number assigning agency that was the problem. If you or I started a little cell phone company for our own neighborhood we would be assigned a minimum of 10,000 phone numbers to sell to our customers, even though we only had, say 150 neighbors. That was the problem. At that time, there were many more cell companies competing than we have today. And big money was still in providing new landlines by MCI, Sprint, GTE, Continental, Verizon, SBC/Pacific Bell. By reducing the amount of allocated numbers a phone company needed to hold for possible future use, and the massive decline of landline use, along with the technology advancement where phone company switching systems could recognize the use of a zero in the middle of the 3-digit prefix, contributed to the lack of a need for the 442. To this day, not one phone number has been issued to the new 442 area code. The only down side to the over-lay, but we all knew it was coming sooner or later, as it has now for the rest of the country, was the need to now dial 10 digits to reach a local 760 number, when you once only needed to dial seven digits if in the same area code. But with individual phone numbers being totally portable across the country, geographic-based area codes are obsolete. I'm still waiting for someone to make a cell phone with a rotary dial on it.
— May 10, 2012 11:04 p.m.

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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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