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The North American Numbering Plan is based on a ten-digit telephone number assigned to each telephone in the telephone network. The number is composed of the three-digit numbering plan area code, a three-digit central office code, and a four-digit station or line number. Certain rules govern the numerical format of each part.
Canada and the United States have experienced rapid growth in the number of area codes, particularly between 1990 and 2005. The widespread adoption of fax, modem, and mobile phone communication, as well as the deregulation of local telecommunication services in the United States during the mid-1990s, increased the demand for telephone numbers.
In several European countries, a different strategy prevailed, known as the open numbering plan, which features a variance in the length of the area code, the local number, or both. [3] United States telephone numbers often included letter prefixes and telephone exchange names, which were more easily memorable for users than long digit sequences.
The format of the toll-free number is called a non-geographic number, in contrast to telephone numbers associated with households that are geographic. (Since the advent of cell phones and voice over IP, households can have any area code in the U.S., but it is still geographic in the sense that calls from that area code are considered local, but ...
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) divides the territories of its members into geographic numbering plan areas (NPAs). Each NPA is identified by one or more numbering plan area codes (NPA codes, or area codes), consisting of three digits that are prefixed to each local telephone number having seven digits.
The prefixes in the Americas start with one of 1,2,5. All countries in the Americas use codes that start with "5", with the exception of the countries of the North American Numbering Plan, such as Canada and the United States, which use country code 1, and Greenland and Aruba with country codes starting with the digit "2", which mostly is used by countries in Africa.
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In December 1930, New York City became the first city in the United States to adopt the two-letter and five-number format (2L-5N), which became the standard after World War II, when the Bell System administration designed the North American Numbering Plan to prepare the United States and Canada for Direct Distance Dialing (DDD), and began to ...