Western Washington Answers To New Area Code

Starting Sunday, dialing parts of Western Washington will take a 360-degree turn.

That - 360 - is the new longdistance code for the area outside a corridor that stretches from Everett to Tacoma, with a tentacle reaching up the Green River Valley.

For the next four months, callers into Vancouver, Olympia, Bellingham and non-metropolitan areas of Western Washington who continue to use 206 will get a message informing them of the new 360 area code, but their calls will go through.

As of May 21, the changeover will require customers to hang up and redial.

The new area code is the latest manifestation of growth in Washington state, and the explosion of devices like faxes that require additional phone lines.

US West spokesman Harry Grandstrom said the new code is needed because the 20-odd telephone companies serving Western Washington have exhausted the three-digit prefixes available using 206 alone.

US West will start assigning new prefixes as soon as two weeks after May 21, he said.

Grandstrom said the split was engineered to divide prefixes evenly between the area codes while affecting the fewest phone users. About 40 percent of US West’s Western Washington customers will be in the new 360 area.

He said the telephone companies have worked for a year on the change. Businesses and other customers were alerted so they could begin exhausting supplies of stationery, changing advertising and taking other steps to reduce the impact on their operations.

Some telephone directories around the country already indicate the new area code, Grandstrom said, adding “It is a big transition.”

He could not estimate costs. There has been only one other code added - in Colorado - in US West’s 14-state service area since the breakup of the Bell system in 1984.

Washington was divided at the Cascade Crest in the late 1950s, Grandstrom said.

He predicted Eastern Washington would not require another area code for several years, but added that the rapid introduction of new technologies makes projections difficult.

Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission spokeswoman Marilyn Meehan said a rash of consumer complaints is expected during the transition.

Those typically recede as consumers adjust to the change, she said.