518 update

518 area code – I attended the Public Service Commission presentation last night on the proposed plan to address the 518 area code issue and learned that of the two options presented (Overlay vs Geographic Split), the State and Feds heavily favor the overlay. The public present also heavily favored the overlay option. In fact since 2000, every time (four times) something like this has happened, the overlay option was chosen and they basically only offer the split option because they legally have to.

So I think it is pretty safe to assume that we will get the overlay option and everyone that has an existing 518 phone number will keep it and any new people will get the new area code.

The official decision will be made towards the end of this year and we should see some effect in about 18 months from now. One person suggested the new area code be 235, which is available, because that is also ADK which is an abbreviation for the Adirondacks.

The straw vote I collected on the options saw the #1 overlay option beat the #2 Split option by 2 to 1. 14 votes for Overlay and 6 votes for the split option.