AREA CODES 1+10-Digit MEANS CHANGES FOR CROSS-AREA CODE CUSTOMERS "Permissive dialing" period offers time to adjust New England Telephone customers whose local calling area crosses lata boundaries and who now dial seven digits for calls across area codes will soon have to dial 1+10 digits for those same calls. For example, customers in Kittery, Maine will have to dial "1", "603" and the seven-digit number to reach a party in Portsmouth, N.H. The price of these calls will not change, even though the dialing pattern required to make them will. As of March 1, all states -- except Vermont -- will be in aninterim "permissive dialing period" during which both 7- and "1"plus 10-digit calls can be made in the cross-area codelocations. Vermont will enter this permissive period on April 1. Permissive dialing ends on the following dates: ** 603 area code: April 8 * 413 area code: April 8 * All other New England Telephone area codes: June 1 The 1+10-digit dialing pattern has been in place since 508 was created for customers calling back and forth between the 617 and 508 area codes of Eastern Massachusetts. New England Telephone will provide advance notice of the conversion schedule for each state in various forms of communication, including bill inserts and newspaper advertising. NORTH AMERICAN NUMBERING PLAN CHANGES This is the first of three dialing changes that New England Telephone will introduce over the next two years as part of an effort to replenish the exhausted supply of area codes in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean. In February, five western Massachusetts communities -- Westfield, Russell, Monson, Holyoke and Agawam -- were the first in New England to begin permissive dialing periods for two other new dialing patterns. The first eliminates the prefix R1S before all directly-dialed toll calls within the same area code. The second requires callers to dial R0S plus the area code and seven-digit number for all operator-assisted and calling-card calls, including those within the same area code. Before 1995 the company will convert all exchanges to new patterns. New England Telephone has been reviewing these changes with regulators in all five states. BUSINESS CUSTOMERS TAKE NOTE Managers may need to modify equipment, including software that controls alarms, autodialers and features such as speed dialing. New England Telephone will provide details before you need to begin making changes.