The Illinois Commerce Commission announced on Monday the addition of a 464 area code to south suburban counties presently served by the 708 area code, including Homewood and Flossmoor.
The 464 area code will “overlay” the existing territory in order to supplement the telephone number supply. The 464 area code will be available for assignment only when all assignable prefixes in the 708 have been exhausted, which is not expected to occur until January of 2022.
The 708 area code serves most of western and southern Cook County and eastern and southern Will County including cities and communities such as Alsip, Beecher, Bellwood, Berwyn, Blue Island, Bridgeview, Broadview, Burbank, Calumet City, Chicago Heights, Chicago Ridge, Country Club Hills, Crest Hill, Crete, Dolton, Elmwood Park, Evergreen Park, Flossmoor, Forest Park, Glenwood, Harvey, Harwood Heights, Hazel Crest, Hickory Hills, Homewood, Justice, La Grange, Lansing, Lyons, Markham, Matteson, Maywood, Melrose Park, Midlothian, Mokena, Norridge, Northlake, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Oak Park, Orland Park, Palos Hills, Palos Park, Park Forest, Richton Park, River Forest, River Grove, Riverdale, South Holland, Steger, Tinley Park, Westchester, Western Springs and Worth.
The Illinois Commerce Commission on June 30, 1999, approved an all-services overlay over 708. Conservation efforts put into place, such as number pooling and commission review of numbering requests forestalled the need for a new area code until now.
With an overlay, an additional area code is added to the same geographic area as the existing area code, with all current phone customers retaining the original area code. The 464 area code will be assigned to new customers requesting local phone service, cellular and paging services, and alarms.
With the new 464 area code, current 708 area customers will keep their numbers. The new area code is being introduced so that the numbering administrator will have a continuing supply of prefixes and blocks to assign to new and growing telecommunications service providers. Consumers seeking additional telephone lines will, in most cases, continue to be able to receive 708 telephone numbers, even after the 464 area code is in service.
The FCC requires that all telephone calls made in the 708 overlay area be completed by dialing 1 + 10-digit number (1 + area code + seven digit number). The change does not raise the cost of the call. A local call will remain a local call, and a toll call will remain a toll call, regardless of the number of digits that are dialed to complete it.
Carriers are expected to enforce mandatory 1 + 10 digit dialing no earlier than Oct. 24, and no later than Jan. 8, 2022. Earlier this year, it was announced that customers in the 708 area code must adopt 1 + 10 digit dialing by Octo. 24 to make room for 988, the 3-digit dialing code ordered by the Federal Communications Commission for the National Suicide Hotline.