AREA-CODE ADMINISTRATION NEEDS A LITTLE SENSE

The company that monitors telephone number assignments says Southern Illinois is running out of numbers and it may be necessary to assign new area codes in the sprawling 618 area code that stretches from East St. Louis to the Indiana border and from Calhoun County on the north to the Kentucky state line.

It isn't a matter of running out of numbers, but one of too many numbers being assigned. It turns out hundreds of thousands of numbers assigned to local telephone companies haven't even been used.

Area-code changes bring instant confusion to telephone users as evidenced by changes made in eastern Missouri a few years back. Creating a conglomerate of area codes in a given geographical area should be a last resort only when all of the telephone numbers have been assigned customers, not telephone companies.