ALBANY — The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) will hold virtual public statement hearings on Thursday, December 2, 2021, to receive public comments concerning a petition filed on September 2, 2021, by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), requesting approval to overlay a new area code within Nassau County, which is currently covered by the 516-area code. The petition seeks an effective date of the new area code in the first quarter of 2023. 

In accordance with standard telephone industry guidelines, NANPA’s most recently forecasted projection shows that the current 516-area code will exhaust its supply of available numbers in the second quarter of 2023. NANPA proposes an area code overlay as relief for the forecasted exhaustion due to demand. An overlay option means that an additional area code is used throughout the entire geographic area for new telecommunications services, while existing phone numbers are not affected. All new area codes created in the United States and New York State over the past several years have been implemented via an overlay. 

According to the petition, all existing Nassau County wireline and wireless telephone customers in the overlay area would retain their current 516 area code and telephone numbers, and the new area code would be assigned to new phone numbers once 516 is fully exhausted.

 Demand for new phone numbers is driven largely by the phenomenal growth of new technology that requires an individual phone number, such as cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices. Implementation of the new area code (and its three-digit identification) would occur following Commission approval of the petition and normally requires concurrent implementation of mandatory ten-digit dialing (whereby the three-digit area code and seven-digit telephone number are required to complete a call) for all calls, whether local or long-distance. However, by the time the proposed Nassau County overlay area code becomes effective, customers in the 516-area code already will have transitioned to mandatory 10-digit dialing due to the national implementation of the 9-8-8 three-digit hotline to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. 

The timeline to implement the proposed area code will be shorter than in other overlay implementations because there would be no requirement for a permissive dialing period (during which calling parties would have the ability to continue to complete calls via seven-digit dialing while also making ten-digit dialing available during the transition). Following a nine-month period for customer education and network preparation, implementation is expected to be completed no later than the first quarter of 2023. The introduction of the new area code will have no effect on existing telephone numbers, dialing patterns or billing. The only consumers affected will be those receiving new telephone numbers. 

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that two virtual public statement hearings will be held before the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), as follows:

Department of Public Service Staff will conduct a brief information presentation and a question-and-answer session before each hearing.