PANEL CALLS HALT TO 818 AREA CODE SPLIT.

Byline: Joseph Giordono Staff Writer

A proposed split of the 818 area code has been indefinitely shelved after a report released Tuesday found only about half of the 8 million numbers are used.

``This is a spectacular vindication of what we have been saying all along,'' said Assemblyman Wally Knox, D-Los Angeles, who sponsored the bill that ordered the study by the California Public Utilities Commission.

San Fernando Valley business leaders had strongly opposed a split, and Tuesday they cautiously cheered the report, saying it will save businesses millions of dollars in costs associated with switching area codes.

``If it's true, then it's great news. But my first reaction is a bit of skepticism,'' said Scott Schmidt, government relations director for the Valley Industry and Commerce Association.

Schmidt pointed out that, according to the report, only 1.2 million unused numbers can be assigned because the rest already are promised to specific carriers.

``What is most important is making sure that anyone who wants a phone number in the Valley can get one,'' Schmidt said.

While the CPUC does not distribute numbers, it has the final say on whether to split or overlay area codes.

Officials said the report does not predict how long the Valley can go without a split, but that it won't happen for many years.

``When the report was completed, and we saw how many unused numbers there were, we decided that we would not have to go with a backup plan either for many years,'' said Helen Mickiewicz, a CPUC spokeswoman.

The 818 area code was created in 1984 and was last split in 1997, when the San Gabriel Valley was given the 626 area code.

Last year, as officials worried that they were running out of numbers, the CPUC proposed a backup plan to overlay a new 747 area code in certain areas of the San Fernando Valley.

That plan came after officials abandoned a proposal to split the 818 area code, reclaim some existing numbers and split them among more than 50 local phone companies.

The report also found similarly large volumes of unused phone numbers in the 909, 510 and 415 area codes.

Mickiewicz also said the utilities commission has asked the Federal Communications Commission to allow the creation of a special area code for wireless numbers.

Though the FCC ruled in 1996 that no state could set up separate area codes for cell phones and pagers, Mickiewicz expects the issue to be revisited in a December report by the federal agency.

The CPUC report also found that several telecommunications companies failed to voluntarily submit their number use data, opening the firms to possible fines and restricting them from receiving new number blocks.

About 1.8 million of the 3.9 million unused 818 numbers are set aside for phone companies including Pacific Bell. An additional 834,000 phone numbers are set aside for wireless companies, CPUC officials said.

Officials from Pacific Bell declined to comment specifically on the report, but said they already are using 85 percent of their allocated 818 area code phone numbers.