Report: If your phone has one of these 10 area codes, never get rid of it.

[James Bond Agent 007]

My father had a work phone number in Manhattan that he had for decades, but hasn't had since he retired in 2010, that I still remember because I used to call it frequently.

[Matthew]

I have two 404 numbers and they will follow me if I move. When I was getting a second phone for my job, I thought... This new phone will have an Atlanta area code number and my phone will still have a Western N.C., number. So, I asked: Can I get Atlanta area code numbers for both phones? I was thinking 470 or 678, but she took "Atlanta area code" literally and found two similar and easy-to-remember 404 numbers, close-to-each-other (exactly the same, except for the last number). She asked if I wanted those two 404 numbers and of course I said yes!

Today, 404 covers just a small area of the metro... roughly the City of Atlanta. Those numbers aren't usually issued outside the city limits. From what I've heard, they stopped issuing new 404 numbers around 13 years ago and now getting a 404 requires someone else to drop their 404. I live in the northeast suburbs of Atlanta. When I give my phone number, people often think I'm inside the city. When making reservations or working with area businesses here in the northeast suburbs, I sometimes get responses to a 404 number like: You know this is the Alpharetta location? This our Suwanee store, we have two locations in Atlanta. And the always popular: We don't deliver in Atlanta.

Many people also think if you have a 404 number, you are originally from here.

When I'm out-of-state, visiting family in Chicagoland, New York, Wisconsin, or North Carolina or visiting the in-laws in the Seattle area, nearly everyone knows where I'm from when I give that number.

Yes, I'm keeping both 404 numbers!

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by niwell

I managed to get a 416 area code when I got my first cellphone in 2007. They wanted to assign a 647 one but I asked and apparently it was no big deal. Holding to that one forever!

I have a 416 number from 2009 as well. It’s “used” in the sense someone else used to have it - I got a call for “Michael” as recently as last year for a “very overdue medical checkup” in Oakville lol - 16 years after I took over the line from Michael!

Similarly not dropping it as 416 has so much value. Definitely the most “valuable” in Canada and very difficult to get one today.


One thing that I feel like has increasingly disappeared is the middle 3 digits meaning something. Specific areas used to have the same 3 digits - towns all had the same, or governments (the province always had 416-212-xxxx numbers). I feel like that really has fallen out of the lexicon even if people still hold on to the first 3 digits as actually meaning something.

[Shawn]

It's a little different in Japan, where the mobile numbers were assigned in blocks to carriers instead of by geography. The prestige, if you could call it that I suppose, comes in owning "original blocks" like 090-10XX-XXXX (the original DoCoMo block) or 090-11XX-XXXX (the original KDDI/AU block). Rarest of all are the 090-13XX-XXXX: these are the original J-Phone numbers, which became Vodafone in 2003, then SoftBank in 2006.

Big points if you happen to have an original @jp-t.ne.jp email address still active (J-Phone's handset domain for Tokyo-area numbers). SoftBank keeps them alive as long as you don't change numbers.

[mrnyc]

i hate your answering machine

if you’d like to make a call
please hang up and dial again

212
313
212

iykyk — there are probably more old area code songs

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Shawn

It's a little different in Japan, where the mobile numbers were assigned in blocks to carriers instead of by geography. The prestige, if you could call it that I suppose, comes in owning "original blocks" like 090-10XX-XXXX (the original DoCoMo block) or 090-11XX-XXXX (the original KDDI/AU block). Rarest of all are the 090-13XX-XXXX: these are the original J-Phone numbers, which became Vodafone in 2003, then SoftBank in 2006.

Big points if you happen to have an original @jp-t.ne.jp email address still active (J-Phone's handset domain for Tokyo-area numbers). SoftBank keeps them alive as long as you don't change numbers.

US cell numbers were also linked to carriers but the area code was issued according to the location of the billing address. I think the first 3 digits of the 7-digit phone number identified the carrier.

[Cirrus]

Funny story:

In the early 2000s I lived in Northern Virginia but wanted a cellphone with a 202 number. On the phone with the phone company's customer support, I got them to admit that they just needed *any* address inside the 202 geography to tie to my name to give me a 202 number. Crucially, that address did *not* need to be my home or any address that I actually had a legal connection to. They literally just needed something to geocode to 202.

So I gave them 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and successfully got my 202 cellphone.

[craigs]

I just realized my work number has a 213 area code. I was only thinking about personal lines. Anyway, it was issued to me by my employer, and I will surrender it if I get another job or when I retire.

[Serenade]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Funny story:

In the early 2000s I lived in Northern Virginia but wanted a cellphone with a 202 number. On the phone with the phone company's customer support, I got them to admit that they just needed *any* address inside the 202 geography to tie to my name to give me a 202 number. Crucially, that address did *not* need to be my home or any address that I actually had a legal connection to. They literally just needed something to geocode to 202.

So I gave them 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and successfully got my 202 cellphone.

I knew W posted here!

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Dang, how old are you or where did you live as a kid that you might've even still had to call an operator to make a long-distance call?

I didn't make a long distance call until I was 17 or 18 so I don't know firsthand what the process was when I was younger but people definitely TALKED about having to "dial the operator".

Also, I grew up knowing 1,000+ people but almost nobody outside of my immediate neighborhood. My entire family (all 8 great-grandparents on down) lived within 1.5-2 miles. One of my grandfather's brothers moved out of town before I was born and I only saw him 2-3 times during my entire life, but aside from that, there was nobody to call long-distance when I quite literally did not know anybody from more than 2 miles away aside from my parents' friends from college who occasionally came over.

Researchers have found that neighborhoods lose their accents because kids want to sound like other kids and not their parents. We didn't interact with any kids from more than 2 miles away except for baseball games or whatever so the neighborhood accents and lingo was entirely intact when I was a kid, but we didn't even know that we did it.