(WSIL) -- The Illinois Commerce Commission announced a new area code is coming to southern Illinois.Â
The new 730 area code will "overlay" the existing 618 area code to "address the depletion of prefixes available for assignment within the region."
The first prefix in the new area code will not be introduced until after July 7, 2023.Â
The petition for the new area code was originally filed in 2000. In 2006, the ICC approved the addition of area code 730.
The Commission sought to delay implementation for as long as possible. Ongoing conservation efforts have forestalled the need for the new 730 area code until now. While many individual 618 telephone numbers remain unassigned, an area code is deemed to be “exhausted� when the last available prefix has been assigned.
While 730 telephone numbers will begin to appear in the second half of 2023, there will continue to be an ongoing supply of available 618 telephone numbers in most areas.
Starting on July 7, 2023, customers in the 618 area code overlay region may be assigned a number in the new 730 area code when they request new service or an additional line.
Customers receiving the 730 area code will be required to dial 10 digits (the area code and phone number) for all local calls, just as customers with telephone numbers from the 618 area code do today.
- Â Telephone numbers, including current area code, will not change.
- Â The price of a call, coverage area, or other rates and services will not change due to the overlay.
- Â What is a local call now will remain a local call.
- Â Customers in the overlay region will continue to dial 10 digits for local calls within and between the overlay area codes, and 1+10 digits for long distance calls.
- Â Customers can still dial just three digits to reach 911 and 988, as well as 211, 311, 411, 511, 611, 711 or 811 if those are currently available in their community.
The 618 area code covers all or parts of 37 counties in Illinois and includes communities such as Alton, Belleville, Cairo, Carbondale, Centralia, E. St. Louis, Edwardsville and Marion. The 618 area code is one of the original, eighty-six area codes in the United States, assigned by Bell Laboratories in 1947. It has not undergone any substantive changes to its boundaries since then.
