204 plus more: new area code coming to Manitoba

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This article was published 14/04/2010 (5680 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG – A second area code and 10-digit dialing are coming to Manitoba as a result of an explosion of cell phone numbers, competitive land-line carriers and population growth.

Glen Pilley, director of the Canadian Numbering Administrator (CNA), which co-ordinates new area code allocations across the country, said Manitoba is running out of phone numbers and a new 431 area code could be in place by the end of 2012.

“There are about 23 million cell phone numbers in Canada and that’s 3 million more than the total number of land lines,” Pilley said, adding the rapid explosion of new cell phone numbers has nearly consumed the supply of existing phone numbers.

A committee of service providers has been meeting to come up with a set of recommendations to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC), which will formalize when the new area code will come into effect and how it will be applied.

Pilley said the area code committee is expected to finalize its recommendations within weeks but the tentative plan is:

• A second area code will come into place between May and October or November of 2012.
• The new area code will be 431.
• Telephone subscribers will have to dial the appropriate area code and the existing seven-digit number to make a local call.
• The first 431 numbers will likely be assigned in early 2013 to new cell phone customers.
• New landline customers will get their numbers with the 431 area code in late May 2013.

Read Thursday’s Free Press for more details.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca