Telephone area codes are being liberated from the areas they once represented. As the codes leave geography behind, a multitude of new services are arising, industry observers say.

People will be able to buy "vanity" numbers, as they do with license plates. Companies will sell popular numbers to the highest bidder, similarly to how snazzy Internet addresses and personalized license plates are sold now. People will order specialized numbers to show affinity with their various clubs, organizations and hobbies.

"Within a generation, I expect that area codes will no more be associated with locations than professional sports players are associated with the teams for which they play," said Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a watchdog group.

Thanks to wireless phones and Internet phone companies, calls can be made and received from around the country, without regard to area code.

For example, Internet phone company Vonage allows customers a choice of area codes and even local prefixes. That's useful for giving the impression of a local presence in a distant city. But as the public becomes aware of the practice, that appearance of locality is undermined.

And as new area codes are introduced to cope with a proliferation of new numbers -- such as the planned introduction of the 442 area code to North County -- people are getting used to the idea that area codes are arbitrary and not fixed entities.

Shames likens the separation of numbers from location to the breakup of a marriage. "The divorce proceeding began with 'porting' of phone numbers, when cell phones and their phone numbers began moving along with their owners to new locations," he said. "And it is continuing with the advent of new telecommunications services, such as GrandCentral, that allow consumers to choose their own phone numbers regardless of where they live or work."

GrandCentral is a Google-owned company that promises customers one number for life. Among its features, the service can ring all a customer's other numbers, receive voice mail and record calls.

GrandCentral offers numbers in more than 200 area codes, covering more than 40 states and the District of Columbia.

Resistance

The vast inertia of the traditional landline network is slowing down the transformation to a non-geographic number system, said Lee L. Selwyn, a telecommunications consultant and founder of Boston-based Economics and Technology Inc.

Landline telephone companies remain locked into a billing system including hard-to-understand zone metering and local toll charges, Selwyn said. These charges are based on a mid-20th-century model in which longer distance equaled higher cost. Internet technology makes those distinctions obsolete.

Growth in the number of wireless customers is the main factor driving increased demand for numbers, Selwyn said. When parents get wireless phones, they'll often buy a family package including phones for the children. The traditional landline phone becomes more of an afterthought.

Once people are wireless, they become attached to their number, Selwyn said. Their behavior changes because wireless technology makes it possible.

"A lot of people, when they move out of the area, will retain their old number," Selwyn said. "If you move from San Diego to Cleveland and keep the San Diego number, it doesn't really much matter. This phenomenon seems to be pretty substantial."

Perils of pioneers

The move toward personal numbers began in 1997, when the Federal Communications Commission gave landline customers the right to keep their number when switching to another carrier.

That right was extended to wireless customers in 2003. From there, it was a short step to letting wireless customers keep their number after a move.

However, wireless customers are still at the mercy of the area code system when area codes are split. Because it's still based on a fixed landline model, adding wireless to the system can produce odd results.

Area code splits are carved out by the three-digit prefixes in that code. These prefixes have traditionally represented geographical subdivisions of the area code. If a wireless number has one of the designated prefixes, it is moved over to the new area code -- even though the owner may now live across the country.

In addition, landline telephone carriers, which are actually assigned the numbers, often lease them to other companies, which then bundle them with other services. But if the underlying local carrier leaves a market, the number may vanish with it.

That misfortune befell a few hundred customers of GrandCentral.

One of those losing his GrandCentral number was Troy K. Schneider, new media editor of the nonpartisan New America Foundation. Schneider said the glitch didn't affect him greatly, but made clear that the offer of a number for life may not be possible to fulfill in some cases. (GrandCentral replaced the changed numbers with others at no charge).

Telephone companies have an incentive to slow the changeover to total number portability, Schneider said, because increased number portability opens them up to more competition.

"If you're a landline company, you have no incentive to do so," Schneider said. "Why would you make it easier for your customer to go somewhere else?

But Schneider said customer demand will cause these obstacles to be removed over time.

"These businesses are interested in their bottom line, but their bottom line is tied to making their customers happy," Schneider said.

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.