The grace period is over.
At midnight tonight, the 954 area code for Broward County becomes official. That means if you use 305 to reach a Broward County business or resident, you’ll get a recording that tells you to dial 954.
If you’re a business owner and still haven’t made the change in your telephone software, you should because area codes around the country are changing.
“We started a year ago to convert our switches,” said Herman Shooster, chief executive officer of Margate-based Communication Services Center.
At the same time, many Broward businesses doing business internationally have been concerned that clients in other countries that have older telephone equipment will not be able to reach them after the area-code change. Some businesses have set up 305 lines in Miami to avoid that situation.
BellSouth has been advertising the area-code change in Latin America as well as the United States.
But the biggest change for most will be dialing more numbers:
– Those calling between Fort Lauderdale and Miami must dial 1 or 0 plus 305 and the 7-digit number.
– People in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties will still be able to call cities within their county that were once long distance and now are a flat 25-cent call. And calls to cities outside of the county, such as Hollywood to Boca Raton or Deerfield Beach to Miami, will still cost 25 cents.
Some dialing exceptions:
– Callers in south Broward who now call north Dade by dialing seven digits will have to dial the area code and the number. The call will be toll-free, and you do not need a 1 or 0 first.
Palm Beach County’s new area code is 561, though 407 can be used until April 13. Joining Palm Beach County in 561 will be Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties.
Office telephone, or PBX, equipment needs to be upgraded to recognize area codes that don’t have 1 or 0 in the middle.
“All the old area codes had 1 or 0 in the middle to differentiate between a long-distance call and a local call. New switches automatically know that when you hit 1, it’s a long distance call, and you can use any combination of numbers for area codes,” said Tim Patterson, spokesman for Lucent Technologies, the equipment arm of AT&T.;
“It’s a relatively low-cost software change, a few hundred dollars. But it depends on the size and the age of the system,” he said.
