next spring, you'll be required to dial 10 digits, across town or across country.
BOSTON - The seven-digit phone call is about to join the rotary phone on the scrap heap of outdated technology.
The state will soon require that people just calling their next-door neighbor include the area code in the number dialed .
Phone update
Starting April 2 , the area code will have to be dialed for all local telephone calls (508 on Cape Cod and the islands).
Four new area codes will be added in the state to service cell phones, fax machines and computer connections.
The new area codes will overlay the existing ones: 774 in the 508 area 857 in the 617 area 339 in the area covered by 781 and 351 in that covered by 978.
Only Western Massachusetts (the 413 area code) is exempt from the overlay plan, for now.
Callers will not be required to dial "1" before the area code for local calls, although it won't cost extra if they do. Long distance toll calls will still require "1" plus the area code.
The state began a "permissive dialing period" on Sept. 10 that still allows callers to make seven-digit calls, but starting April 2, calls won't go through without the area code.
The change will coincide with the creation of four new area codes - 857, 774, 339 and 351 - that will go to people who need new numbers for cellphones, computer modems or fax machines.
"It's going to be a nuisance, that's for sure," said Marilyn Gomeau, an assistant city clerk in North Adams.
Gomeau, 50, said she remembers when it only took five digits to dial friends and family in North Adams, because every number began with 66, and the phone company automatically made the connection.
Some remember even further back, when there was no dialing at all calls went directly to a telephone operator, who patched the call through by plugging a wire into a switchboard.
The proliferation of cellphones, beepers, faxes and computer modems has changed all that.
In 1988, faced with a looming shortage of phone numbers, the state carved out the 508 area code in central and eastern Massachusetts, to go along with the existing 413 and 617 area codes.
It took 10 years before the state had to create the 781 and 978 area codes. Like with 508, state regulators assigned the new area codes based on geography, asking people who already had phone numbers to change over to the new area codes.
The move caused major hassles, especially for businesses that had to spend thousands of dollars on new signs and stationery.
Now, two years later, the state is again running out of numbers in central and eastern Massachusetts. This time, though, it will "overlay" the four new area codes on top of existing ones: 857 on top of 617 774 on top of 508 339 on top of 781 and 351 on top of 978.
That means a new cellphone in Boston's 617 area code, for example, would likely be assigned an 857 area code, or a new fax in Worcester's 508 area code would likely be assigned 774.
Some new numbers may still get the old area codes because companies can reuse numbers of people who move away, said Rob Wilson, spokesman for the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy.
The April changeover won't affect western Massachusetts' 413 area code, although state regulators are currently mulling a similar solution there.
