Phone prefixes in Albert, NB

In numbers

In-service prefixes

2

Telephone numbers covered

20,000

Carriers

2

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

June 5, 2018

Most recent assignment

June 5, 2018

Albert’s share of its area code

Within area code 506, Albert accounts for only 2 of 677 prefixes (0.3%): the code is dominated by Moncton and spread over 88 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Aliant Telecom(NB) holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 50.0% of the total, ahead of 1 other carrier. Code by code: in 506, Aliant Telecom(NB) leads with 1 of 2 prefixes ahead of 1 others.

Wireless and wireline

None of Albert’s holders carries a mobility brand in its registered name: all 2 prefixes belong to wireline or wholesale carriers, among them Aliant Telecom(NB) and Distributel. A call showing a Albert number therefore nominally comes from a landline, cable or VoIP platform rather than a locally assigned cellphone.

How the allocation was built up

Albert’s dated assignments run from 2018 to 2018. The busiest period was 2015–2019, when 1 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 1 prefixes (50%) carry no date in the register: these are the historic pre-1999 assignments, the wireline bedrock of the rate centre. No prefix has been added since 2020: demand for numbers in Albert is flat.

Albert’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Aliant Telecom(NB): this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Distributel in 2018. The most recent arrivals are Distributel (2018), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Albert.

Albert has just 2 prefixes (20,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

Aliant Telecom(NB) leads with 50.0% of the prefixes, but 1 competitors have set up in Albert: a market where the incumbent keeps the edge without exclusivity.

Allocation is mature: only 0.0% of the dated prefixes are less than ten years old, most having been handed out in 2015–2019, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Albert numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

Dialling a Albert number

A single area code, 506, covers Albert, and it is not overlaid with any other code on this territory: one of the few parts of Canada where seven-digit local dialling may still work. From abroad, dial +1 506 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Albert shares area code 506 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton, Miramichi, Bathurst, Edmundston, Campbellton and Tracadie. The largest of them, Moncton, holds 79 prefixes in 506; the smallest on the list, Petitcodiac, has just 9.

What a Albert number tells you

A number attached to Albert tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in New Brunswick, most often Aliant Telecom(NB). It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 2 carriers present here or to a VoIP service usable anywhere. Nor does it tell you who is calling: caller ID can be spoofed, and a New Brunswick area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Albert: code 506-882 is recorded for Aliant Telecom(NB), so every 506-882-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Albert, New Brunswick” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Albert prefix

Each row is an in-service central-office code recorded for Albert, with its original holder and year of assignment.

Allocated prefixes

All 2 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in New Brunswick