•February 24, 2021•
The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) today reminded residential and business customers that, beginning February 27, 2021, mandatory dialing will occur where all local calls made within the Illinois 217 Area Code will have to be placed using the 10-digit telephone number (area code + the 7-digit telephone number). That day, the 447 area code will be added as an overlay to the region currently served by area code 217 to ensure a continuing supply of telephone numbers for the area. An overlay is the addition of another area code (447) to the same geographic region served by an existing area code (217).
The ICC ordered an area code overlay for the 217 Area Code on August 15, 2006, to be implemented upon the exhaust of available, unassigned 217 prefixes. An overlay does not require customers to change their existing area code or telephone number.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.