On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 11:19:01 -0500, Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com>
wrote,
> My father lives in Chapin, South Carolina. I recently got his
> telephone service switched over to Vonage. As Vonage does not have an
> exchange in Chapin (and since all Chapin exchanges are local to the
> Columbia, SC area), we got a Columbia, SC number for him to use.
> Last week, his next door neighbors complained that when they dialed
> his number they got a recording telling them to dial 'one plus the
> area code and the number'. I used their telephone to dial his number
> as seven digits and got the same thing. Vonage's exchange in the
> Columbia area is 233. The neighbors had a number in the 945 exchange.
803-233 is a Columbia prefix, belonging to KMC Telecom, so they're
probably the underlying CLEC selling interconnection to Vonage (unless
it's a shared prefix or the number was ported).
803-945, however, is a different story.
> I called Vonage. Turns out that this 945 number is not a Chapin
> number but something else entirely. I'm trying to figure out why this
> retired couple has a number that apparently isn't local to the
> Columbia calling area.
945 is a Chapin number, sort of. But here's the catch. You've fallen
into the trap of the nasty old rate center system that still plagues
local telephony, where lots and lots of little rate centers are
created for the express purpose of making more calls into toll routes.
There is no "Chapin" rate center. There is a Chapin central office.
But there are two rate centers served by that central office.
BellSouth's 345, 932 and 941 prefices are in the "Chapin-Little
Mountain South" rate center. That is a local call to Columbia. But
the 457, 945 and 948 prefices are in the Chapin-Little Mountain North
rate center. That's local to Newberry and Prosperity (which are toll
routes to CLM-South), but it's a toll call to Columbia.
I don't know where the border is between the two rate centers, or if
for some odd reason they overlap (i.e., some customers can call
Newberry, others Columbia, but nobody gets both). But that's how
Chapin's divided. Maybe it's along the county line? There's a county
line running between Chapin proper (Lexington County) and Little
Mountain (Newberry County), and some of "Chapin", including one
Atkinson's address, is in Richland County. What county is your father
actually in? Is he near the line? Just how far apart are his
neighbors? What was his old BellSouth prefix?
> Have been punching around the Internet trying to find out where this
> number is housed. So far, no luck.
The LERG is not public, but a local calling database at
http://members.dandy.net/~czg/search.html is. The prefix code
database at NANPA.COM is also freely downloadable.
Fred Goldstein (SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net)