To make room for a new phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, people in four Michigan area codes will soon need to dial ten digits to place a call.
Callers in the 616, 810, 906 and 989 area codes -- covering the Upper Peninsula and about a third of the Lower Peninsula -- will have to dial the area code plus the phone number they’re trying to reach starting October 24.
Those area codes already have phone numbers that start with 988, which, by next summer, will be the number for the suicide prevention hotline.
Michigan’s public service commission said dialing the extra digits will not change whether calls are billed as local or long distance.