[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16214-16215]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 H.R. 2439, PREVENTING EXHAUSTION OF TELEPHONE NUMBERS AND SAVING MONEY

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, for all Americans who are struggling with 
new telephone area codes, I have introduced a bill, H.R. 2439, to 
prevent the exhaustion of telephone numbers and save the economy about 
$150 billion in emergency remedial measures.
  If the rate at which new telephone area codes are being introduced 
continues, we may run out of area codes as soon as the year 2007. If 
that occurs, we

[[Page 16215]]

would be forced to add one more digit to all U.S. phone numbers. The 
FCC and other reliable sources estimates that the cost to the economy 
of adding an extra digit to all telephone numbers and reprogramming all 
computer networks and databases to recognize the expanded numbering 
format could be as high as $150 billion, which is about the same cost 
as fixing the Y2K bug.

                              {time}  1030

  But unlike the Y2K problem, the coming crisis in telephone number 
allocation is entirely preventable. My bill requires the telephone 
company to stop wasting potential telephone numbers. It promotes 
competition by ensuring that consumers can take their telephone numbers 
with them if they choose to switch carriers. It restores the ability of 
consumers to dial only seven digits and reach anyone in their area 
code. And it will save the economy $150 billion in unproductive 
emergency and preventable remedial action.

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