FRANKFORT, KY - Western Kentucky has nearly exhausted the 270 area code and is in line for an additional one. The Kentucky Public Service Commission is weighing a request to make the next area code available to all new phone customers throughout the region, rather than to apply it geographically.
    
That would mean people would have to dial the area code to reach even their closest neighbors who get the proposed new number. Implementation of a proposed area code has been delayed five times since 2006.
    
The previous plan was to divide the area codes geographically.

Kentucky's westernmost communities, including Henderson, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Murray and Paducah, would have gotten the 364 area code. The cities of Bowling Green, Columbia, Glasgow, Elizabethtown and Owensboro would have remained 270.