In canada, why do you have to add 250 to local phone calls?

Question

Starting july 2nd, you have to add 250 to every phone number or else it won't work. I think that this is so stupid! Whats your opinion?

Answer 1

because it suck

Answer 2

Ashley,

I presume that you live in British Columbia.   This change will not affect everybody throughout Canada, just those of you who live in the current 250 area code.   It's all to do with the way that a new area code has been introduced for B.C. Province.  

Until quite recently, when numbers started to run short within a particular area code it was normal practice to add a new area code with a "split."   This has been occurring ever since area codes were first used back in the 1940s/50s.  

For many years in British Columbia you only had a single area code, 604, for the entire province.   In 1996, however, numbers were running low, so it became necessary to add a second area code, and this was done with a traditional split.  The Vancouver Metro area and the surrounding southwestern region of B.C. (but excluding Victoria/Vancouver Island) retained the original 604 code, and the rest of the province was changed to 250.   .

Within the last few years, however, there has been another way of introducing a new area code which is known as an "overlay."    The first occurrence of this in B.C. was in 2001 when a new area code, 778, was added to Vancouver.    

When an overlay code is introduced, nobody who already has a phone line needs to have his area code changed, but new lines installed in that area can start to use the new area code.

In other words, everybody in Vancouver with a 604 number kept that number, but NEW phone lines from 2001 onward could be given a 778 number.   The result is two area codes overlapping and covering the same area, so you can end up with both 604 and 778 numbers all over the city.

What is happening now is that the 778 area code has been expanded to cover the entire province, overlaying both of the existing 604 and 250 area codes.  So no numbers which already exist in your area will change, but eventually you might start to see numbers in your town which are in 778 rather than 250 (depending upon where you live it might not happen for many more years).  

The problem you have with an overlay area, is that if you just dial the 7-digit local number, how does the equipment know which of those area codes it is in?    When all of B.C. except the Vancouver region was 250, it was simple.  If your friend's number was 555 -2368, you dialed that and it HAD to be in 250, since that was also your own area code.

However, when you also get 778 covering your area, you would have the problem of knowing whether 555-2368 refers to [phone] or [phone].  

Although it would be possible to arrange the telephone equipment to assume that dialing 555-2368 from your home phone would mean [phone], it has been decided that it would be too confusing if people ended up having to dial 7 digits to reach some numbers in town and 10 digits to reach others.

Thus when an area becomes part of an overlay, as is now happening to all of B.C., it becomes a requirement to dial all 10 digits for all calls.