LANSING, June 5.  The Michigan Public Service Commission today
approved a 616 area code relief plan, one which implements a geographic split. 
The geographic split was one of the alternative plans proposed by NeuStar, Inc.,
the North American Numbering Plan Administrator and members of the
telecommunications industry.  A geographic split provides relief by dividing the
region covered by the existing area code and assigning the new area code to a
newly formed area, while the remaining area retains the existing area code. 
Under the approved plan, a north/south geographic split will be implemented
whose dividing line follows the northern boundaries of the Saugatuck, Hamilton,
Hopkins, Wayland, Middleville, Hastings, and Woodland rate centers.  
Telephone customers in these rate centers and those to the south of these rate
centers will receive a new area code, while customers to the north of these rate
centers will retain the 616 area code.  The Commission directed permissive
dialing to begin no later than July 13, 2002, and mandatory dialing to begin on
February 15, 2003.   Today's order also permits wireless carriers in the 616 area
code to use an extended permissive dialing period through February 15, 2004.

     The Commission concluded that the north/south geographic split should be
adopted for the following reasons:

  *  Customers within the 616 area code have never had their area code
     changed since it was first established in 1949;
  *  The 616 area code continues to cover a relatively large area including all
     or parts of 16 counties; thus, the region now covered by the 616 area code
     has not been divided into the smallest practical area;
  *  Public comments from business and residential customers alike
     overwhelmingly opposed the implementation of an overlay and supported
     the adoption of a geographic split.

     In 1999, NeuStar declared the 616 area code's numbering plan to be in
jeopardy, based upon the projected exhaustion date of NXX codes within the 616
area code and unanticipated increases in the demand for these numbers.  NeuStar
and the telecommunications industry submitted proposals for long-term relief,
including various geographic splits and overlays.  NeuStar and the industry
recommended the all services overlay, which provides relief by opening up a new
area code covering the same geographic area as the area code requiring relief.  
The Commission held public hearings on March 19, 2001 in Grand Rapids and
on April 24, 2001 in Kalamazoo.  Twenty-seven parties made statements at the
two public hearings.  Additionally, 149 parties submitted written comments.  The
comments ran the gamut from recommending the implementation of a
technology-specific overlay to contending that the Commission should reject all
overlays and geographic splits and, instead, rely exclusively on such things as
number reclamation, thousands-block number pooling, and rate center
consolidation.  However, the overwhelming majority of comments strongly
opposed implementation of an overlay on the grounds that it would confuse
customers by breaking the traditional link between area codes and geographic
territories, would require every customer to dial 10 or 11 digits to make a local
call, and wreak havoc on existing alarm and 9-1-1 calling systems.   Today's
order referenced the many actions that the Commission has taken and continues
to pursue regarding number resource optimization, but noted that these efforts
alone could not substitute for timely area code relief.

     The MPSC is an agency within the Department of Consumer and Industry
Services.


Case No. U-12850
June 5, 2001
(MPSC approves 616 area code relief plan)