
AREA CODES
1+10-Digit MEANS CHANGES FOR CROSS-AREA CODE CUSTOMERS

"Permissive dialing" period offers time to adjust

New England Telephone customers whose local calling area 
crosses lata boundaries and who now dial seven digits for 
calls across area codes will soon have to dial 1+10 digits
for those same calls. For example, customers in Kittery, 
Maine will have to dial "1", "603" and the seven-digit 
number to reach a party in Portsmouth, N.H.

The price of these calls will not change, even though the 
dialing pattern required to make them will.

As of March 1, all states -- except Vermont -- will be 
in aninterim "permissive dialing period" during which 
both 7- and "1"plus 10-digit  calls  can be made in the 
cross-area codelocations. Vermont will enter this permissive 
period on April 1. Permissive dialing ends on the following 
dates:

** 603 area code: April 8 
* 413 area code: April 8 

* All other New England Telephone area codes: June 1

The 1+10-digit dialing pattern has been in place since 508 
was created for customers calling back and forth between 
the 617 and 508 area codes of Eastern Massachusetts.

New England Telephone will provide advance notice of the 
conversion schedule for each state in various forms of 
communication, including bill inserts and newspaper 
advertising.









NORTH AMERICAN NUMBERING PLAN CHANGES

This is the first of three dialing changes that New England  
Telephone will introduce over the next two years as part 
of an  effort to replenish the exhausted supply of area 
codes in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean.

In February, five western Massachusetts communities -- 
Westfield, Russell, Monson, Holyoke and Agawam -- were the 
first in New England to begin permissive dialing periods for 
two other new dialing patterns. The first eliminates the 
prefix R1S before all directly-dialed toll calls within the 
same area code. The second requires callers to dial R0S plus 
the area code and seven-digit number for all operator-assisted 
and calling-card calls, including those within the same area 
code.

Before 1995 the company will convert all exchanges to new
patterns. New England Telephone has been reviewing these
changes with regulators in all five states.


BUSINESS CUSTOMERS TAKE NOTE

Managers may need to modify equipment, including software 
that controls alarms, autodialers and features such as speed 
dialing. New England Telephone will provide details before 
you need to begin making changes.  

