Area code 600 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for non-geographic use in Canada of specialized telecommunication services such as telex applications, caller-pays cellular, ISDN, and mobile satellite communication services. [1]
One of the area code's most common uses is the provision of satellite phone service in remote areas of Northern Canada where conventional telecommunications infrastructure is not available.
Central office prefixes for area code 600 are assigned according to a special set of guidelines issued by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. [2] The guidelines do not define the services that qualify for the non-geographic numbers, but specify that:
In the context of NPA 600, Non-Geographic Services are specific telecommunications services that are: 1) approved by the CRTC, or confirmed by the CRTC as not requiring approval, 2) provided by Canadian Telecommunications Service Providers (TSPs), 3) made available on a non-geographic basis to customers located in Canada, and 4) accessible from at least one public Canadian telecommunications network other than the Code Holder's network. [3]
The teletypewriter services provided with the area code were previously provisioned with area code 610 in the Teletypewriter Exchange Service (TWX) in 1962. The services were reassigned to area code 600 in 1993, returning 610 to the pool of unassigned area codes for general purposes. [4] It was reassigned in 1994 to Pennsylvania.
Area code 600 has a capacity of 798 central office prefixes (200 to 999, with 555 and 911 not issued). Six relief area codes (622, 633, 644, 655, 677 and 688) are reserved by NANPA as subject to assignment in Canada for expansion of non-geographic services [5] but have never been used. Area code 666 is not assigned. Each block of 10,000 numbers is assigned to one carrier only; number portability or number pooling is not practiced. A carrier offering multiple, different non-geographic services may request separate prefixes for each.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the telephone country code 1. Some North American countries, most notably Mexico, do not participate with the NANP.
The telephone number prefix 555 is a central office code in the North American Numbering Plan, used as the leading part of a group of 10,000 telephone numbers, 555-...., in each numbering plan area (NPA). It has traditionally been used only for the provision of directory assistance, when dialing NPA-555-1212.
Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories that are members of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when dialing to initiate a telephone call. When necessary, the ten-digit number may be prefixed with the trunk code 1, which is referred to as 1+10-digit dialing or national format.
Seven-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure customary in some territories of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for dialing telephone numbers in the same numbering plan area (NPA). NANP telephone numbers consist of ten digits, of which the leading three are the area code. In seven-digit dialing it is not necessary to dial the area code. The procedure is also sometimes known as local format or network format.
Area code 867 is the area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the three Canadian territories, all of which are in Northern Canada. The area code was created on October 21, 1997, by combining regions that were previously served with area code 403 and area code 819 in one numbering plan area (NPA). As the least populated NPA in mainland North America, serving about 130,000 people, it is geographically the largest, at 3,921,739 km2 (1,514,192 sq mi), with Alaska (907) a distant second.
Area code 564 is a telephone overlay area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Western Washington state, including metropolitan Seattle. The area code was first proposed in 1999 to relieve telephone number shortages in area code 360, but implementation was delayed until 2017, when it was installed for an overlay complex that comprises only the numbering plan area 360. Neighboring area codes 206, 253, and 425 were slated for expansion of the overlay upon exhaustion of central office codes in each NPA. In 2023, area code 206 was approved for expansion with a guide line for preparation of inclusion of at least nine months. Ten-digit dialing has been mandatory in all of western Washington since July 29, 2017.
Telephone number pooling, thousands-block number pooling, or just number pooling, is a method of allocating telephony numbering space of the North American Numbering Plan in the United States. The method allocates telephone numbers in blocks of 1,000 consecutive numbers of a given central office code to telephony service providers. In the United States it replaced the practice of allocating all 10,000 numbers of a central office prefix at a time. Under number pooling, the entire prefix is assigned to a rate center, to be shared among all providers delivering services in that rate center. Number pooling reduced the quantity of unused telephone numbers in markets which have been fragmented between multiple service providers, avoided central office prefix exhaustion in high growth areas, and extended the lifetime of the North American telephone numbering plan without structure changes of telephone numbers. Telephone number pooling was first tested for area code 847 in Illinois in June 1998, and became national policy in a series of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) orders from 2000 to 2003.
In telecommunications, an area code split is the practice of introducing a new telephone area code by geographically dividing an existing numbering plan area (NPA), and assigning area codes to the resulting divisions, but retaining the existing area code only for one of the divisions. The purpose of this practice is to provide more central office prefixes, and therefore more telephone numbers, in an area with high demand for telecommunication services, and prevent a shortage of telephone numbers.
Area codes 514, 438, and 263 are telephone area codes of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Montreal and most of its on-island suburbs, specifically the Island of Montreal and Île Perrot in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Area code 246 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Barbados. The sequence 246 spells BIM on an alpha-numeric telephone keypad, a nickname for the island.
Area codes 876 and 658 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Jamaica.
Area codes 306, 639, and 474 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the entire Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Area code 306 is one of the original North American area codes assigned in 1947. Area codes 639 and 474 were added to the numbering plan area in creation of an overlay complex for the entire province in 2013 and 2021, respectively. The incumbent local exchange carrier is SaskTel.
Area codes 678, 470, and 943 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. State of Georgia in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The area codes are assigned in an overlay plan to a combined numbering plan area (NPA) consisting of 404 and 770.
Area codes 610, 484, and 835 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the eastern and southeastern regions of Pennsylvania. The numbering plan area (NPA) includes regions to the west of Philadelphia and the cities Allentown, Bethlehem, and Reading. It includes much of the Delaware Valley, including almost all of Delaware County, most of the Philadelphia Main Line, and all of the Lehigh Valley.
The expansion of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is the anticipated requirement for providing more telephone numbers to accommodate future needs beyond the pool of ten-digit telephone numbers. Ten-digit telephone numbers have been in use in the United States and Canada in long-distance telephone service since the 1950s. An October 2020 analysis estimated that the numbering plan would not be exhausted until after 2050.
Area code 710 is a special area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It was reserved for the federal government of the United States in 1983 for emergency services. Since 1994, the area code has provided access for authorized personnel to the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) in the United States, and the Canadian local exchange carriers, and cellular/PCS networks. Previously, it was a Service Access Code (SAC) in the Teletypewriter Exchange Service (TWX) for the northeastern part of the United States.
Telephone numbers in Canada follow the fixed-length format of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) of a three-digit area code, a three-digit central office code, and a four-digit station or line code. This is represented as NPA NXX XXXX.
Area code 456 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan that has been withdrawn from use and is available for a new assignment.
In telecommunication, a personal communications service is defined by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) as "a set of capabilities that allows some combination of personal mobility, terminal mobility, and service profile management".