All phone dialing in BC going to 10 digits

[DENelson83]

www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/04/24/bc-ten-digit-dialing.html

The 250 area code is running out of numbers, so the 778 overlay already in use in the 604 area code will be expanded to cover the 250 area code as well.

[Hardy]

Great website to check out for telephone related information in Canada:

www.cnac.ca

see especially:

www.cnac.ca/data/ac778.htm
www.cnac.ca/data/ac250.htm
www.cnac.ca/data/ac604.htm

[Northern Exploration]

Toronto has had ten digit now for a while now. You get in that mode and I automatically do it when I travel to other areas. Kinda of like being in NYC where there are 4 different area codes plus others for cell phones. It was better before when the area codes were divided by districts so you could tell from the number what area the person was in. Now when you get a second line in your house it can have a different area code from the first one. So you can actually have one area code for your cell, one for your house and one for a fax or second line. The two old area codes of 416 and 905 still are fairly reliable though unless you have a 416 cell phone and then never mind . 416 is Toronto and 905 is the areas surrounding it. Now there are two more that sprinkle throughout 416 and 905.

Now at least people are starting to abandon their home lines in favour of just using a cell phone. This is freeing up some numbers so hopefully they won't need to add more area codes soon. The downside is of course when there is a power failure a lot of cells towers go down and it can be hard to get on the system. The old land lines are useful to have in case of an emergency.

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

Yes, I can attest to this after being on a VoIP phone for two years...forget just losing power...it's just as much a pain when your ISP drops your connection...

[ruddernut]

Why don't they just go 8 digits? Then they can increase the possible combinations by a 10-fold, and maybe reunite BC under one area code.

[Dane]

Apr 26, 2008 12:01:01 GMT -8 @ruddernut said:

Why don't they just go 8 digits? Then they can increase the possible combinations by a 10-fold, and maybe reunite BC under one area code.

Wouldn't that involve changing existing numbers?

[Hardy]

Apr 25, 2008 15:49:52 GMT -8 Northern Exploration said:

416 is Toronto and 905 is the areas surrounding it. Now there are two more that sprinkle throughout 416 and 905.

289 is overlaid on 905
647 is overlaid on 416

(FYI for those not near the centre of the earth, TO)

[ruddernut]

May 1, 2008 11:38:13 GMT -8 Dane said:

Apr 26, 2008 12:01:01 GMT -8 @ruddernut said:

Why don't they just go 8 digits? Then they can increase the possible combinations by a 10-fold, and maybe reunite BC under one area code.

Wouldn't that involve changing existing numbers?

Just prepend an extra digit to existing numbers. Like put a 2 before 604 numbers, 3 before 250 numbers, and 4 before 778 numbers.

eg. [phone] would become 2867-5309

[DENelson83]

But that would require a cost-prohibitive amount of infrastructure upgrades. Every single telephone switch in North America would need a retrofit to recognize 8- and 11-digit numbers.

[cohocatcher]

A shot in the dark, so if I am totally wrong please let me know, and why I am wrong.

We have telephone numbers of seven digits in the form of xxx-yyyy (example, 822-3026 my former number at work before I retired). Thus each xxx preface has a potential of 1,000 possibities. For the yyyyy numbers there are 10,000 possibilities.

Therefore there are 10,000,000 possible numbers before introducing area codes.

My hypothesis (a wild assumption, as wrong as it may be), is that within an area code there are, at least for B.C., many numbers available.

However, each xxx prefix, when it is assigned, will have a potential of 10,000 numbers.

But how many of those numbers are actually used? What is the average number of allocated numbers for each xxx prefix?

Is each xxx prefix limited to a specific geographical area?

For example, in Vancouver there are a multitude of xxx prefixes.

Now, some prefixes obviously can not be used (911, 411, 00(anything), etc., but how many of the potential 10,000,000 numbers can be assigned and how many actually are?

Some points to ponder.

[Political Incorrectness]

Would it be easier to switch to 4 digit zip code dialing so that major modifications would not be necessary?

[cohocatcher]

May 2, 2008 19:59:31 GMT -8 Political Incorrectness said:

Would it be easier to switch to 4 digit zip code dialing so that major modifications would not be necessary?

What exactly is 4 digit zip code dialing?

[Political Incorrectness]

It is just an idea, since having 5 digits at the end of a phone number (xxx-yyyyy) would really screw things up, so why not add more zip codes?

[cohocatcher]

I'm confused. How would 604(the area code)-xxx-yyyy translate to a 4 digit zip code number?

[Quatchi]

I don't think adding a 5th digit would be to hard to do, all the switches are computerized now so they would just have to update the OS on them. Of course this would cost some money and it is probably easier just to add another area code.
Does anyone have a good understanding of exactly how the phone system in BC works, like an old technician or someone? It would be interesting to compare the system to the internet.

Cheers,

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

Some digging and I came up with this website about telephone networking.

Also, looking through Wikipedia handed me this gem. Lots more here, if you follow all the links from the page; all about switch, hub and network types...

[BreannaF]

My grandmother in Seattle had the same phone number (and the same house) all her life, from the day in 1932 when she moved to Seattle from a small logging town until the day she passed away in 1993.

The number has been changed here, but:

• In the 1990's, her phone number was [phone].
  
• In the late 70's and early 80's, all you had to dial was 522-0030.
  
• In the early 70's, her number was LA2-0030.
  
• Before people referred to the number as LA2, it was LAkeview2-0030.
  
• In the 1950's and early 1960's, her number was simply Lakeview 0030.
  
• And for the first decade after she originally got her number, you would turn the crank on the side of the telephone to get the operator's attention, and ask her to connect you to number 30.
  

I'm sure there was a similar evolution almost everywhere in North America. The latest changes are just the next step in that evolution.

And just to put things into perspective, that old logging town in Snohomish County that Grandma's family came to in a covered wagon in 1918 or so, now has three Community Transit bus lines connecting it to Everett and Boeing. Such is progress.