FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- Fort Jackson telephone users will experience a change in the way they dial numbers to on-post phone lines this summer, officials from the Directorate of Information Management said.
According to Kathy Hayes, DOIM service management division chief, Fort Jackson has almost exhausted its supply of phone numbers starting with "751." DOIM officials have requested a batch of new phone numbers, which will be used for new phone lines only.
The new phone numbers will start with the digits "562."
"The biggest change is that users will be dialing seven digits for on-post calls," Hayes said.
Currently, on-post users dial "4" followed by the four-digit phone number to make calls within Fort Jackson. Because there will be more than one prefix in place on post, users will soon be required to dial the entire number. For example, instead of dialing 4-1234, the user will have to dial 751-1234.
Hayes said that no time has been set for when those changes will take effect, but expects it to happen this summer.
Ben Hammond, DOIM site manager for telephone services, said that users would get a grace period, during which both, five-digit dialing and seven-digit dialing, will be possible.
"We'd like to keep both for a short period of time," he said.
Hammond and Hayes emphasized that current phone numbers will not be changed. The new phone numbers will be used for newly established phone lines only.
"We're not going to see a lot of new numbers right away," Hayes said.
She predicted that the first influx of new numbers is most likely after the completion of the new Armed Forces Chaplaincy Center and the Consolidated Drill Sergeant School.
The new phone lines will also have a new DSN prefix, 859, Hayes said.
"Ideally A,AA,A-- in a perfect world -- we would want to assign the new numbers to new units that will come in," Hayes said. "But that's not going to happen."
She added that any unit or activity on Fort Jackson that adds new lines will be given a number with a new prefix once the current batch of numbers is exhausted.
Susanne.Kappler1@us.army.mil
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