Beginning tomorrow, Sunday, October 24, 2021, residents with the 707 area code will officially be required to engage in what is referred to as 10-digit-dialing. This means, no longer can a holder of a 707 phone number simply dial the seven-digit number. These changes dictated by the Federal Communications Commission require that all phone calls made, even to other 707 numbers, will require dialing the area code first and then the phone number.
Please note, technically the change also requires a 1 in front of the area code (i.e. +1-707-XXX-XXXX). Most smartphones automatically add the 1 in front of the area code. But, some phones may not and will require the user to type in the 1 and the area code.
This change is rooted in a July 2020 FCC rule aimed at enhancing access to mental health crisis resources. The rule established 988 as a new shortcut phone user could use to access the National Suicide Hotline.
The change to ten-digit dialing is necessary because 988 is often used as a “central office exchange code” by area codes that utilize seven-digit calling. To ensure maximum access to phone users, all area codes that were utilizing the seven-digit calling model had to adopt ten-digit dialing.
As per the California Public Utilities Commission, the 707 area code serves an incredibly wide swath of Northern California including “portions of Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama and Trinity Counties.”
This makes a lot of “sense“.
27 October: I’ve made two local (707) calls without the required (707). Each connected. Yesterday I dialed a local call without the area code and it did not connect. I added 1 to the area code & got a connection. What hath God wrought?