London and surrounding area will welcome a new telephone area code Saturday.
The new area code being added is 548. The number joins the existing 519 and 226 area codes which cover most of southwestern Ontario including London, Sarnia, Woodstock, Brantford, Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Guelph.
The decision to add a new area code is a joint effort between the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission and the Canadian Numbering Administrator.
Glenn Brown, is the project manager for the Canadian numbering administrator project. He explains why the new number is needed.
“The area is running out of the first 3 digits of a phone number that we refer to as a central office code,” says Brown.
The new area code will not be replacing the two existing area codes.
“Right now you need to expect a 519 phone number, you need to expect a 226 phone number, you can shortly expect to see 548 phone numbers,” says Brown. “It’s not changing the way you do anything, it’s just there will be another phone number to think about.”
The new 548 area code will be introduced slowly as the supply of 519 and 226 numbers runs out.
“New area codes are introduced before you run out, so that way, you take your best guess as to when you think you’re going to run out, and you get everything in place ahead of time in case there were some planning errors or something,” says Brown. “The last thing you want is to run out of the first digits of the phone number.”
The number isn’t random either, as it’s a lengthy process to choose the number which best fits the criteria for the region.
“It’s a combination of a science and an art to narrow it down from an overall pool to the chosen number,” says Brown. “A committee makes a recommendation to the CRTC, and if the CRTC agrees then they basically say that’s going to be the new area code.”
Emergency numbers will be unaffected, as will all existing phone numbers.
The exact time when current area codes will run out is unknown.
**this story was written by Samuel Gallant. Samuel is a student in the Fanshawe College broadcast journalism program. He is performing a summer internship with Blackburn News.**
