Maine's Public Utilities Commission is investigating how the
communications company forecasts its need for blocks of new phone
numbers, which could hasten Maine getting a new area code.

By Dustin Wlodkowski - Published August 4, 2021

Maine officials opened an investigation Tuesday into Verizon over a
state brand: the 207 area code.

Maine's Public Utilities Commission is investigating how the
communications company forecasts its need for blocks of new phone
numbers, which could hasten Maine getting a new area code.

In recent years, the PUC has become concerned that it may no longer be
possible for every phone number in the state to begin with 207 -
numbers that have become engrained in Maine culture.

https://www.necn.com/news/local/maine-opens-investigation-into-verizon-over-207-area-code/2527378/

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It appears that Moderator <telecomdigestsubmissions@remove-this.remove-this.telecom-digest.org> said:

Maine's Public Utilities Commission is investigating how the
communications company forecasts its need for blocks of new phone
numbers, which could hasten Maine getting a new area code. ...

The article says:

That could hasten the end of the dominance of 207, which the PUC
currently expects to reach its maximum by the end of 2024, even though
just 37% of 207s are currently "utilized."

That low usage isn't surprising since most of Maine is quite rural so they have lots of
tiny exchanges with far less than 10,000 numbers assigned.

If they want to fix the number issue, they should mandate that the
entire state become one rate center, all calls within Maine are local.
Then carriers that need more numbers could use blocks of unused
numbers from those tiny exchanges.

Fat chance, though.

R's,
John

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