Well, debate rages is overstating it, but the debate is certainly heated — how shall New Mexico apportion its second area code?
Yep, here we are, the fifth largest state, and we are all in the same telephone area code — 5-0-5. And we are running out of numbers (I guess 10 million combinations isn’t enough for 2 million people).
Should they just assign the new code to new numbers? Should they divide the state into two codes? Which part of the state has to change? What about all the businesses with 505 as part of their identity? Who will pay for all the new letterhead and business cards and advertising materials? However will we cope? Auntie Em! Auntie Em!
What’s scary I think is the second code — 5-7-5. 5-oh-5 and 5-seven-5. Doesn’t that seem likely to lend itself to confusion? A quick glance at the national map and I couldn’t find any other propinquity like that.
Maybe we should accept the reality of the second code and just ask for a more distinct number. How about 6-6-6?
I’m just bumfuddled by all the debate on the subject. I understand there have actually been protests in the streets? Bullhorns and all?
Lord knows I love this city, but all the hoohaa over ADDING AN AREA CODE is slaying me.
Honestly, I haven’t lived in city (much less a state) with only one area code in well over a decade. Multiple area codes within a city are business as usual elsewhere. It really is no big deal, ABQ. Really. I promise. No, REALLY.
And why is the implementation such an issue? You don’t go in and change existing numbers’ area codes (buuuh), you just add NEW ones. For NEW SERVICE. It’s how it’s done — it makes transitioning simple and painless and doesn’t result in unnecessary expense for folks.
The days of area codes actually designating physical areas within a city are long dead. Add numbers as needed. As population (and service needs) grow. Buuuh.
I have relatives in the Quad Cities, and I can never remember whether it’s 309 (for Rock Island and Moline, IL) or 319 (for Davenport and Bettendorf, IA).
Over the past 15 years, my parent’s house has gone from 312 to 708 to 847. . . .
575 is the new area code? That does seem like asking for trouble. I thought they really tried to avoid having similar area codes next to each other. 719 and 720 in Colorado shouldn’t count for obvious reasons.
Wouldn’t the normal approach be to draw a big circle around ABQ and let it keep 505, while making the rest of the state 575?
I remember this debate going on when I lived in NM. Then they found some new numbers somewhere (which seems like it should have been written up in the math textbooks, doesn’t it?). The debate then was on how the poor people who lived in rural NM could cope with a new number, so rather than change everywhere but Abq, they were going to make Abq change instead.
I just think we need to get some really good mathematicians on it instead.