I have been informed that the ICC (Illinois Commerce Commission) had approved an OVERLAY of Area Code 618 (Southern Illinois), to take effect possibly by 2008 (the dates are NOT firm yet), and Neustar-NANPA has announced the new NPA code as 730. (This code, 730, was the "guessed at" code for future relief of NPA 618).
In February/March of 2004 (last year), the ICC and NANPA announced that NPA 815 in northern IL (except the northeast/Chicago Metro/Suburbs) would be overlaid with the new 779 NPA at some point in the future, maybe during 2005. However, there has been nothing new regarding this
779 overlay to 815 for THIS Calendar year (2005).Here is a link to a recent article in the St.Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, regarding the recently announcement of 730 to overlay 618 in southern IL. This link still works as of Fri-29-April-2005 and does not seem to require "registration":
Also, the 217 NPA in central IL (except for north/west central IL of Peoria and the IL side of the IL/IA "Quad Cities"), is in a state of NPA Relief Planning, but nothing firm has been decided. I guess the trend will be for an overlay, and the "guessed at" code I have is 751, although that is not necessarily a "given".
At this time, 309 in north/west central IL (Peoria IL, and the IL side of the IL/IA "Quad Cities") is NOT undergoing any NPA Relief Planning at this time.
In the Chicago Metro Area in northestern IL, there was an overlay of
847 with 224 (North Chicago Suburbs) in 2001/02.And there are planned overlays with officially announced new NPA codes for the rest of the Chicago IL Metro area, but these overlays have NOT yet taken effect, nor are there any "firm" dates of when they will take effect. These were announced by ICC and NANPA back in 1999. See NANPA Planning Letter #195, dated 24-October-1999,
Mark J. Cuccia mcuccia at tulane dot edu New Orleans LA CSA