The pooling trial requires participating telephone companies to share unused numbers in blocks of 1,000.
Carriers donate unused telephone numbers to open the pool.
By using telephone numbers more efficiently through a pooling process, the life of the existing area code is lengthened. The rapid proliferation of area codes both here and across the country is a result of telecommunications companies having to operate within an outdated telephone network structure. Currently companies can receive numbers only in blocks of 10,000 whether they have 100 or 9,000 customers. Once the 10,000 numbers are given to a telecommunications carrier, they cannot be assigned to another one. Over 40 carriers donated approximately 2,525,000 telephone numbers to open the pool.