When were area codes first required for local calls?

Answer 1

Beginning in 1995, area codes were added in the US and Canada that did not have a 0 or a 1 as the middle digit. Beginning in the 1970's in New York and Los Angeles, and gradually across the country since then, local numbers could have 0 or 1 as the middle digit. These developments broke down the old arrangement that allowed the telephone switch to tell quickly whether you were dialing an area code or a prefix within your own area code. For example, 512-5551 was not a valid number, so you must have been dialing (512) 555-1xxx. Conversely, there was no area code 347, so 347-5551 had to be a complete number within the same area code.

To avoid ambiguity and confusion, you must now dial the area code on any call with the 1+ or 0+ prefix.

In areas with overlay area codes, it gets even more complicated. For example, if you're in Miami, your phone might be in area code 305 or in area code 786. If you dialed just a 7-digit number, it would be ambiguous which of two possible local numbers you wanted to reach. Thus, you have to dial the area code on every call. In Canada and in many parts of the US, you can dial just 10 digits, the area code and the number. However, in other parts of the US, you must dial 1+area+number.

Answer 2

In the USA and Canada, the area code must be dialed for all calls in places that have an area code overlay, meaning that two or more area codes serve the same geographic territory. The first overlays to require dialing the area code were in Maryland in 1997.

Answer 3

In North America (USA, Canada, etc.), you must always dial the area code if you are in an overlay area, because there are two or more area codes that serve the same geographic territory. The requirement to dial the area code on local calls was first implemented in 1997 with the overlays in Maryland.

Answer 4

In the US and Canada, you usually must dial the area code if you are calling outside your own area code. You also must dial the area code if you live in an overlay area (a zone with more than one area code for the same cities). When a region gets an overlay code, it first requires all local calls to be dialed as either 10D or 1+10D (depending on which state or province); for example, 404-555-0123 or 1-212-555-0198.

Answer 5

In North America (USA, Canada, etc.; telephone country code +1), the only area code that was ever implemented for cell phones only was area code 917 in New York City. The U.S. federal government decided that forcing cell phones into new area codes while leaving landlines in the existing codes would give cell phone companies an unfair competitive disadvantage. Thus, area code 917 became a "general services" overlay (serving cell phones, landlines, and any other types of phones), and plans to create other cellular-only overlays were cancelled and never implemented. The Canadian government reached a similar decision by similar reasoning. The only other country in North America with more than one area code is the Dominican Republic, which also decided to implement a general services overlay of area codes 809, 829, and 849. Thus, in North America, cell phones share the same geographic area codes with landlines; the only exception is area code 600 in Canada, which is used for certain special purposes, including satellite telephones where the caller pays a substantially higher rate to cover some of the costs of satellite airtime. Area code 600 is only available for calls within Canada.

In most of the rest of the world, a cell phone is assigned a number from a separate national pool of numbers exclusively for cell phones, without regard to the specific location within the country.

Answer 6

Probably when your area code split or was overlaid ... most likely in the 1990s or later.

"Back in the day", it could reasonably safely be assumed that unless you lived in an extremely large city, anyone in the same city as you (possibly anyone in the same STATE as you) had the same area code that you did, so dialing an area code for local numbers wasn't necessary.

(In fact, when I was a kid, we didn't even need to dial the full exchange number for local calls; the telephone office switching equipment in my town was set up to recognize an initial "2" as meaning not only "I'm dialing a number within my own area code" but also as "I'm dialing within the same exchange". Since there was only a single exchange in town, you really only had to know four digits (plus that you needed to dial a 2 first) to call anyone in town. I'm not sure when this eventually changed, but I remember still being able to dial only five digits at least up through the early 1980s.)

As more and more cities have needed to split into multiple area codes, or overlay an old area code with a new one (so that two phones within literally the same BUILDING might not have the same area code), dialing the area code became mandatory in more and more places.

Answer 7

Dialing the area code on all calls in Maryland was made mandatory as of May 1, 1997, in preparation for the introduction of the first two overlay area codes, 240 and 443, on June 1, 1997.

Answer 8

In the US and Canada, area codes were first introduced in 1947.