310 CODE OVERLAY DROPPED; PUC ALLOWED TO ALLOT NUMBERS DIFFERENTLY.

Byline: Associated Press 

State regulators dropped plans Thursday for an area code overlay in the 310 area of Los Angeles County and allowed residents to resume dialing seven digits instead of 11 for local calls.

The Public Utilities Commission said it was able to change its plans, in response to complaints from residents and lawmakers, because a federal agency granted its request for measures designed to preserve the supply of telephone numbers.

The PUC's decision has implications for planned overlays in the San Jose and San Diego areas. The commission has not acted, however, on Gov. Gray Davis' request to block implementation of 11-digit dialing in those areas immediately.

Overlays are telephone companies' preferred response to the dwindling supply of phone numbers due to the proliferation of cellular phones, faxes, pagers and modems.

Instead of a geographic split, a new area code is assigned to new phone lines in the same area as an existing code. All customers in the area must dial one plus the area code and the seven-digit number for all calls.

The PUC voted in May 1998 to assign the state's first overlay to the 310 area, which covers west Los Angeles County from Malibu south to San Pedro, and extends as far east as Beverly Hills.

Residents have been required to dial 11 digits on all calls since April. The new 424 area code was scheduled to take effect next month.

On Wednesday, the Federal Communications Commission granted the PUC's request to assign numbers to phone companies in blocks of 1,000 instead of the previous 10,000. Companies with fewer than 10,000 customers kept the remaining numbers unused, causing the supply to run out faster.

``We are pleased that the FCC has granted us the flexibility we need to implement a more efficient way of allocating and using telephone numbers,'' PUC member Joel Hyatt said in a statement.

Hyatt, a recent Davis appointee, credited the ``leadership and intercession'' of the governor, who contacted FCC Chairman William Kennard on the issue.

Davis had also urged the PUC to scrap the overlay, saying Wednesday that 11-digit dialing was costly, confusing, ``premature at best, and possibly unnecessary.''

In hopes of forestalling area code splits as well as overlays, the PUC ordered phone companies to use numbers from blocks of 1,000 before assigning additional numbers and to return unused numbers to a pool that other companies can use.