What Is NANPA?

NANPA is the abbreviation of the word that represents the organization known as the North American Numbering Plan Administration. This group is just one of many associations that help to keep a functioning society well oiled, and especially in a silent manner. Many people don't realize what goes into a system such as this and don't realize the thought and responsibility of assigning area codes to districts.

However, NANPA does not act alone. It is governed by the FCC which stands for Federal Communication Commission and it acts under accordance of telecommunications.

One might assume that it is responsible for decision making only in the United States, but indeed the North American Numbering Plan Administration operates for twenty four countries including Canada.

It was established in 1947 and the area code 201 was the first to be used in a very historic and groundbreaking concept in the telecommunications field.

The system at the moment consists of +1, followed by a 3 digit area code, followed by a 7 digit phone number, which alone can be duplicated around the territories, making it necessary to have a system of area codes in the first place.

Brilliantly however, one area code alone can hold up to nearly 8 million phone numbers before another area code is to be implemented. No area code can begin with the number "1", because that is reserved as an international establishment of a calling code (+1) for country as well as long distance.

AT&T which some may also know as Bell was responsible for the establishment of NANPA in 1947, and in the beginning the area codes were very simple and only produced for larger cities. The reason that the area codes resided in the lower digits of 1,2 and 3 is because it was much easier and quicker to dial them on the old rotary telephones.

Because of the emergence of fax machines and cell phones, the population of area codes needed has boomed in both Canada and the US, which lead to some cities having multiple area codes.

This works in two ways. A split as its called is when an area code is divided up into the pre-existing area code and a new one is created to serve the same area that the original code covered. An overlay is when sometimes multiple area codes are used for the exact same area.

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