There was a time you kept hearing we were going to run out of phone numbers. Now, cell phones are so much a part of our lives, many of us have 2-3 cell or such telephonic devies! What has happened to the phone number shortage? Has the problem been solved?
No, we are not running out of phone numbers. Here in the Valley we got the 747 area code thrust upon us 2+ years ago as an overlay to 818. To date, to the best of my knowledge, all of zero phone numbers have been assigned. There are still numerous unused 3 digit area codes available for assignment.
However, the phone company was permitted to shit can the time lady, ostensibly due to some technical reason preventing her from answering when the new overlay went into effect.
Ummmm…
yes and no
i did some programming for Pac Bell* many years ago, and got to see the mess up close and personal…
The first “running out of numbers” issue was due to the original rule that NPAs (the real proof of a telco insider is knowing “area codes” as NPAs) have either a 0 or 1 in the middle digit (long story, but note that Manhattan is 212 and Alaska is 907 - remember rotary dials?).
Getting the hardware to think 747 is an area code, not a trunk, was a major effort.
That part has been solved.
The remaining problem is that the phone company decided that, since users weren’t going to be getting those NPAs, WE’ll use them!
A whole bunch of NPA’s (including the ever-popular ‘555’) are used internally by the phone company - how they cleared them, I don’t know, nor do I know how many more they have/can clear.
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- Pac Bell was home to Scott Adams - the author of Dilbert. Yes, Dilbert’s shop was modelled on Pac Bell. And they are PROUD of it. He was still with them when I was there - my boss told me of his prescence and his cubicle location. No, I didn’t buzz by.
And yes, that shop really was that screwed up - programmers were '“engineers”, project managers had no staff (they had to borrow hem from application managers - not much political back-stabbing there). For those who had the misfortune of ever dealing with Arthur Anderson’s 24-year-old “Senior Consultants”: Pac Bell had long-term plans to get DOWN to 30% AA children. Down to 30%. Hell, Dilbert must have written itself.
Yes, Scott Adams retired, and the strip (IMHO) reflected that.
- Pac Bell was home to Scott Adams - the author of Dilbert. Yes, Dilbert’s shop was modelled on Pac Bell. And they are PROUD of it. He was still with them when I was there - my boss told me of his prescence and his cubicle location. No, I didn’t buzz by.
While New York City was 212 (lowest dial pulls), NJ was 201 (lowest numeric code), since it was home to Bell Labs.
BTW, the lowest numeric number in the NANP is 201-200-0000. There’s an interesting story behind the 201-200 machine - when it was first installed, there was only one customer on it, a college. Around midnight most nights both processors would reset. The logic went as follows: “I haven’t processed any calls in an hour. I must be broken. Let’s reboot!”. The 201-332 machine was the world’s largest 1AESS, with 192,000 WTN’s. It was also the first field trial for ICLID (Caller ID). The switch was fitted with enough AFSK modules to support simultaneous Caller ID on every subscriber line. A more realistic concentration ratio was used in actual deployments.
It was more a case that by the time the need for additional area codes arose, there was switching equipment that was scheduled to be replaced and the stored-logic replacements could handle it but it would not be cost-effective to retrofit electromechanical offices to handle it. As proof - there were a bunch of X10 area codes (710 being the most popular) which were used for TWX (teletype) service. Most crossbar and panel central offices were wired to block calls to those numbers, but step-by-step offices would attempt to complete calls to them. That was normally blocked in a tandem office, though operator trunks could complete to them - but the trunk wouldn’t release which would get the operator confused.
Technically, 555 was an exchange prefix (NXX) not an NPA. With the advent of number portability, it is a simple case to program switches to keep the allocated special service numbers (555-1212 for info, 555-2368 because it shows up in a lot of literature) in the original switch, but to route other 1000’s blocks (or smaller sets) to another switch for customer allocation. A bunch of the other 55x prefixes were used for test purposes - 55# + the last 4 of your phone number would give you a dial (pulse speed or tone) test and then a ringback. 550 was for the first prefix in a given CO, 551 for the 2nd, and so on.
Considering with the current 10 digit telephone configuration used in the US and the total US population is just over 300 million, we are no where near of running out of telephone numbers, for every man woman and child, and that even assumes that everyone has a separate, work, cell, home and fax number.
The problem with area codes was because originally phone companies were given out blocks of numbers of 10,000 (I believe it was this). This meant a small local phone company with few customers was tying up numbers.
Later this was reduced to blocks of 1,000 (again, I believe).
Also the FCC allowed customers to take phone numbers with you. Before when you moved from Coyote Telephone to RoadRunner Bell, you had to get a new phone number. Now you can take your Coyote Telephone number over to RoadRunner Bell.
These two things, along with a few others reduced the problem a lot
If you are interested in Area Codes check out this site LincMad (dot) Com. It’s great reading
What happens when a phone number is no longer used or paid for? How many phone numbers can be recycled and used again?
For example, when one moves away to a new house, they get a new landline phone number. The old one is non transferable so it gets cancelled. How long does the number stay cancelled? There is some time, in case of our old phone number, seemingly decades with our old number. Many transient people who live month by month in cheap apartments had new phone numbers all the time.
How much turnover is there in numbers?
The 715 area code in Wisconsin just got overlaid with 534, so area codes are still getting crowded, but not at the pace they once were. As Markxxx said, the pace was greatly reduced with the 1,000 allocation blocks.
Personally surprised that 608 in southwest Wisconsin didn’t get hit with an overlay first.
We were supposed to get an overlay area code a few years back but they delayed it since it’s not needed yet.
I can’t answer a specific number, but remember that, just because the number is no longer reserved doesn’t mean it’s immediately going to be reassigned.
I do know that, using prepaid phones where it was often easier to just buy a new phone every month, it was not wholely rare to, when we first got the phone, to have a call or two looking for the number’s previous owner.
Everywhere in Ontario either has or is getting an overlay code, except for area code 807 in the far northwest. Eastern Ontario: 613 & 343. Toronto: 416 & 647. Surrounding Toronto: 905 & 289 & soon 365. Central Ontario: 705 & soon 249 (I think). The Southwest: 519 & 226.
In general, you can port a number between carriers in the same locality, or ‘rate centre’. AFAIK, people who take their numbers to distant locations are just moving their cellphones, and they are still considered to be in their number’s original location. They’re just roaming a lot. To call them, you still call their original nominal location. And pay long distance charges, if you’re not on some country-wide plan. As roamers, the recipients pay long-distance from their nominal location to to their current location, if they’re not on a plan as well.
But that only works if people & phones were evenly spread across the country geographically.
For example, North Dakota has the entire area code 701, and the million phone numbers within it. But only about half that number of people. So there are lots of available phone numbers in the 701 area code, but you have to move to North Dakota to get one of them.
[quote=“t-bonham@scc.net, post:13, topic:552079”]
Ten million.
From 701-000-0000 to 701-999-9999
Or 0 to 9,999,999.
[quote=“CutterJohn, post:14, topic:552079”]
Approximately eight million. 701-200-0000 to 701-999-9999. They don’t give out numbers with exchange codes (the middle three digits) starting with 0 or 1.
I believe that there are a few more combinations they don’t give out, including exchange code 555 (701-555-xxxx), exchange codes that match locally-accessible area codes (701-701-xxxx), and so on. But those are harder to nail down.
Ottawa is now 10 digit dialing (613), and apparently I’ve been told there are plans to have add 819 numbers into the fold, as well, which is presently reserved for our cousins across the bridge in Gatineau.
I think 819 has or will be getting an overlay code as well. I haven’t heard any rumors of attempting to combine it with 613 though.
[quote=“Sunspace, post:15, topic:552079”]
This may be a Canadian thing. One of our local cell exchanges is 713, which also happens to be the area code for Houston.
I believe I heard that an area code cannot cross state lines, but your example is Canada, and Canada is home to the only exceptions to this (902 for both NS and PEI - has been like that since the first codes were laid out c. 1947 - and 867 for all three territories - probably because all their population together is still smaller than that of any state with one code. (They’ve always been tacked on with anoter code, Yellowknife used to be part of Alberta’s then-code of 403.))
[quote=“MsRobyn, post:18, topic:552079”]
But is it your area code? I’ve seen local exchanges here that are the same as area codes as well, but none of them are the same as our area code. What I think Cutter John is saying is that you can’t have a phone number ABC-ABC-DEFG.