Idaho makes plans to add second area code by 2018

BOISE – Idaho is outgrowing its 208 area code and will need a second one by mid-2018, so the state Public Utilities Commission is asking Idahoans whether they want to be divided geographically by two area codes or just mix the new code in statewide.

Either option has big downsides: either half of current area codes would need to change, or residents will have to dial 10 digits on every in-state call.

That’s not to mention the loss of 208 as the state’s only area code, which has been the case since 1947. The digits are so closely identified with Idaho that they denote a popular Idaho-brewed ale, a line of handmade skis and more.

Idaho’s telecommunications providers already have weighed in – they’re unanimously recommending that all existing numbers would keep their 208 area code, and new numbers would be assigned the new code. Everyone would have to dial 10-digit numbers for every in-state call, though.

“Any change is going to be inconvenient, there’s no question,” said Gene Fadness, spokesman for the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. “What we’re trying to do is pick the least inconvenient way.”

In recent years, Idahoans have used the “208” tag as an identifier for Idaho businesses, products and attitudes.

Grand Teton Brewing, based in Victor, Idaho, makes a popular 208 Session Ale with the slogan “Born & Raised in Idaho.” Substance Skis, an independent ski manufacturer in Coeur d’Alene, makes “The 208,” a $750 bamboo and carbon-fiber all-mountain ski billed as “the ultimate weapon for groomed and soft snow conditions.” 208Rocks.com in Pocatello offers Idaho T-shirts with an array of slogans and images.

Idaho is one of only 12 states left that uses a single area code, and of those, half are proposing to add a second area code.

Fadness said the most popular route for states adding area codes over the past decade has been to assign new codes to new numbers.

“It’s just been found to be much easier to get people to adjust to 10-digit dialing than to ask half the state to change their phone numbers, to change their business cards, and to change their advertising,” he said.

Plus, if the state went with the geographic split, “It just invites acrimony to decide which half of the state has to change their phone numbers,” Fadness said.

With a geographic split, people in each zone could still dial just the seven-digit number to reach others in the same zone, while they’d only need to dial 10 digits to call into the other zone. But half of them would have the new area code.

Fadness said he can still remember growing up in rural Montana when his community had to switch from four-digit dialing to seven-digit. Idaho made that switch decades ago.

“It seemed like a big change,” Fadness said, “but we adjusted and went on.”

Staff writer Becky Kramer contributed to this report.