"Mr. Emanuel had not submitted a letter of resignation by Thursday afternoon, but he had held repeated conversations with the president about his plans and his future, officials said. Mr. Emanuel has canceled appearances at several scheduled events in Washington in the next few weeks. And he has a new cellphone with a 312 area code."
I was under the impression that all 312 numbers were no longer available and you'd have to get another area code which was overlaid on the 312 area.
No area code ever runs out of line numbers. They do run short on exchanges. In any event, 312 did not run out of exchanges; 773 did. The 872 overlay of both 312 and 773 was triggered, based on a unique ruling in 1999 when additional area codes were assigned to the Chicago metropolitan area but never opened for years.
On Sept 30, Joseph Singer (also quoting from the New York Times) wrote (regarding Rahm Emanuel's pending resignation):
Strictly speaking, it is NOT the assignment and subsequent exhaust of "line-numbers" that directly cause area code exhaust and thus area code relief with new area code implementation, but the continued assignment and exhausting of "office codes".
The outer neighberhoods within the "City" in area code 773 had completely exhausted its 773-NXX office codes back in 2007. The business district (The Loop) in area code 312 (there was that 312/773 split back in Fall 1996) still has NUMEROUS office codes available for assignment.
In Fall 2007, the new 872 (USA) area code officially overlaid BOTH
773 AND 312, even though there were still numerous 312-NXX office codes that could still be assigned. Even today, with code reclamation (or "voluntary returns" if there is ever really such a thing), the 773 area code has a total of four 773-NXX codes now available for (re)assginment. But since the new 873 area code has been opened up as of October 2007, and since it officially overlays BOTH 773 and 312, there are now quite a number of 773-NXX office codes overlaying both
312 (Chicago Zone 01) and 773 (other Chicago ratecenter zones within the "city" itself).
But... SUPPOSE that there were NO MORE 312-NXX codes NOR 773-NXX codes available for assignment by NeuStar-NANPA to requesting landline and wireless providers for zoned ratecenters within the CITY of Chicago... There could STILL be individual LINE-NUMBERS within office codes in both area codes, and Mr. Emanuel could have requested a cellphone with such a 312-NXX-xxxx number associated with a Chicago Zone 01 ratecenter, or if he wanted a cellphone associated with some OTHER Chicago ratecenter zone he could also request a cellphone with a
773-NXX-xxxx number, as long as desired cellphone provider would be willing to get such a number.
Similarly, it is even possible (depending on the carrier you might ask), to still get a toll-free 800 number, as well as 888, 877, and
866. BTW, tomorrow, Saturday 02-October-2010, is the official start date for assignment of new toll-free 855-nxx-xxxx line-numbers by carriers who reserve such 855 toll-free numbers in the master database of such numbers for the US and Canada (and NANP-Caribbean).
Assignment/activation of new area code resources are based at the office codes level, not the line-number level.
I suspect the statement was a _generic_ reference to Chicago being area code 312 as opposed to whatever his actual phone number is. People who call long distance, which would include politicians and reporters, often tend to know the area codes of large cities, or least the commonly known historical one. For instance, NYC being 212, Washington being 202, Los Angeles being 213, Phila 215, etc. In other words, the reporter was trying to be clever.
I also suspect that this particular person, having very close ties to Chicago, probably never gave up his old cellphone.
On Friday 01 Oct 2010, Mark J Cuccia wrote in reply to Joe Singer:
[ ... ]
TYPO... 873 is NOT the overlay to Chicago's 312 & 773: 872 (as noted at the beginning of the paragraph) is.
873 is rather the pending (June 2013) overlay to 819 that covers northern, western, and south-central Quebec (Canada), situated BETWEEN
418/581 and 450/579, the latter overlay pair originally being 514, the
514 NPA being the immediate Montreal PQ Metro area, having shrunk down during 1998 when 450 split off. 514 (Montreal Metro) was also overlaid with 438 back in 2006/07. 450 in southwestern Quebec was overlaid with
579 this past Summer 2010, and 418 for eastern Quebec (including Quebec City) was overlaid wtih 581 in September 2008.
[Moderator snip]
It's been many, many years now, but I read an article in our local paper about young Texans who were moving to DC to work/volunteer for then President Bush. They were keeping their Texas phone numbers during their entire stay in DC because area codes have become pretty meaningless in a mobile world. So it's very likely Emanuel kept his Chicagoland phone number. And yes, reference to 312 probably meant Chicago in general.
hancock, I suspect that prospective Mayor Rahm is more than capable of obtaining a 312 phone number upon request, given that they are readily available. If he can't scare up a genuine 312 line number, gosh, he may not be mayor material.
Chicago had no shortage of office codes till Cricket came to town and gobbled up a huge number of codes.
Yes, 312 was "running short" of unassigned numbers, so an overlay area- code _was_ allocated, and activated earlier this year.
However, cell carriers (_and_ wireline carriers, for that matter) get "blocks" of numbers assigned to them, which they then dole out one-by-one to customers.
If a cell carrier has a reserve of '312' numbers there's no problem in getting a phone with at 312-area number from them.
Secondly, there is a constant 'churn' of phone numbers -- people leave the area and discontinue service, just for one example. when this happens, that number _is_ available for 're-assignment' to somebody else.
I recently (last month) signed up for "Google Voice" and had the choice of a whole *bunch* of 312 area numbers. In that respect, I've got at least as much 'clout' as Mr. Emmanuel does.
Another point is that cell phone rating points might have any area code, ignoring area code geography that would be used by a telephone company land line number. It's even possible to get 312 numbers at suburban rating points as the cell phone companies never turned their original pools back for re-assignment after the 312/708 split. Those of us who went through it recall that our cell phone providers insisted on forcing
708 numbers on us even though the 312 numbers were never returned to the pool.
Of course, and numbers tend to be reassigned quickly.
Google Voice numbers are from Bandwidth.com CLEC, a company that supplies phone numbers to any VoIP provider. As far as I know, none of the VoIP providers have their own number pools.
Whoa. Getting line numbers assigned automatically by a neutral third party upon request. Too bad no one thought of this years ago before Chicago area got 11 area codes, up from the original two. Bet we could have survived without splits.
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