For the first time since breaking away from 5-1-2 in the late 1980s, metro San Antonio today gets a new area code, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
But one thing that Terry Hadley of the Public Utility Commission wants to emphasize is that nothing about your existing number, whether it is a land line, a cell phone, an office phone, or, God forbid, a fax machine.
"There is absolutely no change for customers who currently have a 2-1-0 area code number," he said.
Hadley says unlike previous area code additions, which have been geographically based, 7-2-6 will be added as an 'overlay.' That means that people who have a 2-1-0 number will not have to change it, but 7-2-6 will be assigned to new cell phone and land line phones.
Hadley says if you are in love with 2-1-0, believe it or not, some people have 2-1-0 tattoos, you should be able to request a 2-1-0 number for the foreseeable future.
"There may be numbers available with the 2-1-0 code, but there will also be numbers available with the new 7-2-6 area code."
This is why we have gotten those annoying messages while dialing local numbers over the past month, if you have forgotten to put the 2-1-0 before the number. Since your next door neighbor or the co-worker in the next cubicle may have a 7-2-6 number, the system will have to know whether the number you are dialing is a 2-1-0 or a 7-2-6, because, eventually, the same number will exist in both area codes.
For cell phones, its been a simple matter of going into your contacts and adding 2-1-0. Some cell phones have even done it automatically.
He says the story today is the same as when San Antonio adopted 2-1-0, and ten years later, when 8-3-0 was created out of much of the 2-1-0 area. He says there is so much growth in telecommunications, that, with several members of the same household having phones these days, plus the explosive growth in business lines in the city over the past twenty years, the 2-1-0 numbers are simply running short.
"Eventually, its forecast that the 2-1-0 numbers will exhaust or run out," he said. "This new area code implementation is taking place in plenty of time that there won't be a concern about the availability of new numbers."