If Vonage Gets Its Way, Area Codes Could Be Up for Grabs
Regulators may give VoIP providers more control over phone numbers
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In an iconic Seinfeld episode, Elaine schemed to get a dead neighbor’s 212 phone number so she wouldn’t be stuck with New York’s newer 646 area code. In the first Sex and the City movie, Carrie Bradshaw wailed, “I’m a 917 gal!” when her assistant replaced her old cell phone with a new one bearing a 347 number.
Diana Mitchell, a real estate agent at Citi Habitats, based in Manhattan, identifies with both characters. “I’m very dead set on a 917 or 212, because I’m not one of the new people,” she says. A 212 number shows clients “I’m not sitting in some borough somewhere,” she adds. “They think, and I immediately think, ‘office in Manhattan.’ ”