Why does Akron have the 330 area code? It used to be something else
March 30 used to be Feb. 16 in the Akron-Canton area.
Calendars didn't change. Our phone numbers did.
Northeast Ohio residents will celebrate 330 Day on March 30 as a loving tribute to regional telecommunications. March 30 — or 3/30 — coincides with the area code 330.
As older citizens can attest, the penultimate day of the month used to pass without commemoration. The 330 has been around for less than 30 years. We used to be 216 just like Cleveland.
Gather around, children. Ohio's area codes began in 1947 as part of AT&T's nationwide numbering plan. AT&T, formerly the American Telegraph & Telephone Co., used to be a regulated monopoly that oversaw all phone services in the country.
Initially, the Buckeye State had only four area codes under the Ohio Bell Telephone Co.:
∎ 216: Northeast Ohio.
∎ 419: Northwest Ohio.
∎ 513: Southwest Ohio.
∎ 614: Central Ohio.
After AT&T broke up in 1984 as part of an antitrust settlement, the five Midwestern operating companies — Ohio Bell, Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell and Wisconsin Bell — adopted the name Ameritech.
Akron used the 216 area code for nearly 50 years. Did anyone ever celebrate Feb. 16 — or 2/16 — as 216 Day? Not really. We were too busy hanging out at the mall.
By the mid-1990s, Ameritech faced a crisis in Northeast Ohio. The growing popularity of fax machines, pagers and cellphones meant that 216 would run out of numbers by late 1996. At the time, there were about 2.5 million landlines and 200,000 cellphones in the region.
Ameritech decided to divide area code 216. The southern portion, including Akron, Canton, Youngstown, Kent and Medina, would become 330.
About 900,000 land-based phones and 100,000 cellphones and pagers got the new area code. In addition, hundreds of thousands of fax machines and computer modems had to be reprogrammed.
Companies scrambled to notify customers and clients about the switch. It wasn't easy. For example, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. had 5,500 phones and 130 fax machines at its headquarters in Akron.
Ameritech phased in the change March 9, 1996. When it became official June 29, callers who incorrectly dialed 216 received a recorded message telling them that the area code had changed. There was a lot of grumbling, but people eventually got the hang of it.
We've been 330 ever since. Well, most of us. The surge in cellphone use necessitated the addition of another area code — 234 — as an overlay to 330 in October 1999, about the same time that Ameritech merged with SBC Communications. Today, Ohio has 15 area codes.
So far, there has been no push to hold 234 Day parties on Feb. 34. Oh, wait. Yeah, never mind.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: How did Akron get the 330 area code?
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