How Do Unavailable Area Codes Get Populated

[Ted Groves]

Guess I have a basic misunderstanding of how Area Codes that are Not Available today; might ever become available in the future.

Iowa has a total of 5 area codes. If you go to the list that MJ shows for Available Area Codes (Dec 3, 2009 Version), it only lists 4 of them. Naturally, the one I need (641) is missing... Not Available.

No 641 available, so I registered MJ with a nearby Area Code, thinking I would see it come available, or I could get an invite to Google Voice and get a 641 number from them. Wrong.

I next proceeded to buy an invite off of eBay. Got the invite to GV only to find that I could not get a 641 number from them either.

Now here is where it gets interesting and confusing (to me). I know that I just gave up a land line number about 5 days ago, in the 641 area code. In fact, when I dial that particular number today, 641-xxx-xxxx, it rings once and gives me a message that "This number is no longer in service... etc. etc."

The point is, I know there is at least this number that is available and not in use. However, apparently it cannot be utilized by either MJ or GV when I go looking for a number. And, who knows how many other numbers are floating around in the Not In Service Status, but not being able to be used by MJ or GV users?

If MJ and GV are waiting for a block of numbers to be assigned to Area Codes they currently don't offer, I'm guessing they will NEVER become available since there just flat out aren't any more to be had, and apparently those individual ones (like my old one) are saved and used strictly by ATT or Qwest (or whatever they are called today).

Anyone else have any thoughts on this problem, or know of a work-around?

[cdwaldron]

I doubt that you really want an answer. You gave up your landline before you did any research. Silly you! Do a little research and you can easily find how area codes and prefixes are bought.

[tony]

The point is, I know there is at least this number that is available and not in use. However, apparently it cannot be utilized by either MJ or GV when I go looking for a number.

For our local telephone company, they hold off re-issuing discontinued numbers for about 6 months. My guess is to give time for people to realize the number is discontinued. Otherwise the next person who gets the number ends up getting all sorts of wrong number calls as people try to contact the previous subscriber to that number.

[Ted Groves]

The point is, I know there is at least this number that is available and not in use. However, apparently it cannot be utilized by either MJ or GV when I go looking for a number.

For our local telephone company, they hold off re-issuing discontinued numbers for about 6 months. My guess is to give time for people to realize the number is discontinued. Otherwise the next person who gets the number ends up getting all sorts of wrong number calls as people try to contact the previous subscriber to that number.

Makes sense...

[eljefino]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Amer ... ering_Plan


Canada and the United States have experienced rapid growth in the number of area codes, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s. There are two main reasons for this. First, there is the increasing demand for telephone services (particularly resulting from widescale adoption of fax, modem, and mobile phone communications). The second and more important reason is the telecom deregulation of local telephone service in the United States beginning in the early to mid-1990s. At that time, the Federal Communications Commission began allowing telecommunication companies to compete with the incumbent local exchange carrier (usually by forcing the existing monopoly service provider to lease infrastructure to other local providers who then resold the service to consumers). However, because of the original design of the numbering plan and telephone switching network which assumed only a single provider, number allocations had to be made in 10,000-number blocks. Thus, anytime a new local service provider entered a certain market it would be allocated 10,000 numbers by default, even if the provider only obtained a few (if any) customers. As more companies began requesting numbering allocations, this caused many area codes to begin exhausting their supply of available numbers (code "in jeopardy" in telecom jargon), and additional area codes were needed. In reality, many of the new telecom ventures were not successful and while the number of area codes started increasing rapidly, this did not necessarily translate to a much larger number of actual telephone subscribers as large blocks of numbers lay unassigned to any "real" subscribers because of the 10,000-number block allocation requirement. When these telecom ventures are merged or bought or liquidate, their blocks go to the successor, or go unused. No regulatory mechanism exists to reclaim and reassign these underutilized blocks.