Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Worldwide distribution of country calling codes. Regions are coloured by first digit. Telephone country codes, but also sometimes referred to as "country dial-in codes", or historically "international subscriber dialing" (ISD) codes in the U.K., are telephone number dialing prefixes for reaching subscribers in foreign countries or areas via international telecommunication networks.
Area codes are also assigned for non-geographic purposes. The rules for numbering NPAs do not permit the digits 0 and 1 in the leading position. [1] Area codes with two identical trailing digits are easily recognizable codes (ERC). NPAs with 9 in the second position are reserved for future format expansion.
The first customer-dialed direct call using an area code was made on November 10, 1951, from Englewood, New Jersey, to Alameda, California. [6] Direct distance dialing (DDD) was introduced subsequently across the country. By the early 1960s, DDD had become commonplace in cities and most towns in the United States and Canada.
In the United States, most carriers require the caller to dial 011 before the destination country code. [9] New Zealand requires the area code to be dialed when calling between two local calling areas. During the 1970s and 1980s, each local calling area had its own area code. For example, Christchurch and Nelson in the late 1980s:
811 is excluded because it is a special dialing code in the group NXX for various other purposes. Calls to the toll-free numbers are charged to the receiving party, and are free to the caller if dialed from land-line telephones, but may incur mobile airtime charges for cellular service.
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.
A phone number communicates a lot --and if you dig a little deep, an area code contains information about the economic situation of its residents, too. Richest and poorest area codes in the US ...
In 1951, the number of area codes grew to ninety: the State of New York gained area code 516 on Long Island, and Southern California received area code 714, to reduce the numbering plan area of Los Angeles. [23] Area code handbook issued by many telephone companies in 1962 to promote the newly introduced direct distance dialing.