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CONTACT: Kyle DeVine                September 20, 1996
CPUC - 542
         213-897-4225                             (R.95-04-043)

  CPUC APPROVES PREFIX LOTTERY IF CONSERVATION MEASURES FAIL

    The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved
today a lottery system to be used to distribute new telephone
number prefixes to telecommunications companies serving
customers in the 310, 415 and 619 area codes if conservation
measures fail to avert a shortage of prefixes within those area
codes.
    In June, Pacific Bell, the State Code Administrator (SCA)
declared a temporary freeze on prefix assignments to carriers
serving these area codes because of impending number shortages.
    New telecommunications technologies and competition for
local exchange service have increased telephone number use and
new area codes must be introduced statewide to meet that
demand.  The SCA generally follows standard industry guidelines
which are intended to assign codes in an efficient manner.
Because of concerns that prefixes in the 310 area code may be
used up before a new area code can be introduced, in June the
Commission adopted more restrictive conservation measures for
assigning prefixes.  The Commission is also considering whether
similar restrictions should be applied to other area codes.
    The additional conservation measures the Commission imposed
on the 310 area code include:  all carriers - cellular, paging,
personal communications services, local telecommunications
companies and local competitors - must return or confirm that
they have unused numbers; disconnected telephone numbers will
be reused after two months for residential service and nine
months for businesses; and all prefixes, including those that
are the same as nearby area codes, will be used.

                            -more-


    Today's order directs the SCA to report to the CPUC whether
conservation measures specified last June will be sufficient to
ensure number availability in those area codes or if rationing
by means of a lottery is necessary.
    Since the freeze was declared, Pacific has been meeting
with industry representatives to devise additional voluntary
conservation measures that would extend the life of prefixes in
these area codes.  If the voluntary measures are not
sufficient, a lottery will be conducted to determine which
carriers get the remaining codes within these three area codes.
At a later date, the Commission may decide to extend the
lottery to other area codes facing similar number shortages.
    To mitigate risks that new entrants to the
telecommunications industry may be denied any prefixes, the
lottery would reserve 60 percent of the prefixes for carriers
who are new in the area and the rest to carriers that want to
expand business in an area.  However, to avoid denying new
service to customers, priority will be given to a carrier which
is the only service provider in a community and has run out of
numbers for that area.
    Area code 310 has 53 new prefixes left and they must last
until the area is split in October 1997.  Because numbers may
run out before the area code split is completed, the Commission
ordered the SCA to evaluate the feasibility of splitting the
310 area sooner.
    The 415 code has 120 new prefixes left which must last
until May 1998.  The 619 code has 57 to last until December
1997.  There are 792 prefixes in an area code, 10,000 numbers
in a prefix.

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