As the population grows and cellphone subscribers multiply exponentially, Canada is running out of new area codes.
The CRTC announced Tuesday that the suburbs surrounding Toronto will become the first region in the country to have three different area codes.
The new number, 365, will be introduced on March 25, 2013, a year before the area’s existing codes — 905 and 289 — are expected to be exhausted. A fourth area code, 742, has also been set aside.
Overlay or relief codes, as they are known, are multiple area codes assigned to one region, and there are only so many to go around. The available options are quickly being reserved for major urban centres across Canada, although they are not always accepted willingly.
In Vancouver, residents already dial 604 or 778, while the area code 942 has been identified as a potential future number for the 902 region of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Manitoba will soon have a second area code in addition to 204.
And next month, 343 will pop up on displays along with 613 for calls from the Ottawa region.
But while the new numbers are necessary, they are not always popular.
North America has about 750 usable area codes, said Mr. Pilley, divided among Canada, the United States and about 20 Caribbean nations. The codes cannot start with 0 or 1, which route directly to the operator or indicate a long-distance call. And they cannot end with the numbers 11, which are reserved for emergency or information calls. And no one, he says, wants the area code 666.
About 10 years ago, area codes began “going like hotcakes” in the United States as cellphones became popular. California, for example, has more area codes than all of Canada.
At the request of the Canadian government, 50 area codes were set aside for Canadian use, and fewer than 30 remain unassigned.
To determine an overlay area code for a specific region, the CNA compares the available numbers to local central office codes — the first three digits in a phone number — to avoid duplication.
“There’s so many rules it would make your head spin,” Mr. Pilley said of the selection process.
The reaction to the new area codes is more visceral than scientific.
According to UrbanDictionary.com, 905 is a term used by Toronto residents (416ers) to imply that someone is “bland, boring, unsophisticated and/or ignorant.”
And Toronto is not the only city to have such hang-ups about their digits.
In the 1990s, an episode of Seinfeld dealt with a character’s panic when she was assigned a new phone number in New York City, the first in North America to have more than one area code.
Since then, area codes have been used as shorthand for regional affinities in TV shows, movies and hip hop anthems.
Denis Carmel, a spokesman for the CRTC, said that because 10-digit dialling is now the norm across Canada, fewer people object to new area codes.
In Toronto, young people identify with the number 647, an area code that was once perceived as a telephone kiss of death.
And when Montreal got a new code recently, few people reacted strongly.
“It’s amazing how quickly people adapt,” he said.
The reintroduction of old numbers as people ditch their land lines and toss out their fax machines is expected to slow the pace of area code expansion.
But within the next 30 years, Mr. Pilley predicts that North America will run out of 10-digit numbers, leading to the next phone-related identity crises.
That’s when the CRTC will introduce four-digit area codes and central office codes, he said.
In the meantime, Toronto residents should avoid being smug about the 905 region’s new number.
A third area code for Toronto will be unveiled next year.
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