Phone prefixes in Athens, ON

In numbers

In-service prefixes

3

Telephone numbers covered

30,000

Carriers

3

Area codes

2

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

August 30, 2007

Most recent assignment

September 19, 2017

Athens’s share of its area codes

Within area code 613, Athens accounts for only 2 of 772 prefixes (0.3%): the code is dominated by Ottawa-Hull and spread over 132 rate centres. Within area code 343, Athens accounts for only 1 of 641 prefixes (0.2%): the code is dominated by Ottawa-Hull and spread over 116 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Bell Canada holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 33.3% of the total, ahead of 2 other carriers. Code by code: in 613, Bell Canada leads with 1 of 2 prefixes ahead of 1 others; TELUS Integrated Communications is the only holder in 343. No carrier holds prefixes in every one of Athens’s 2 area codes, while 3 appear in just one.

Wireless and wireline

None of Athens’s holders carries a mobility brand in its registered name: all 3 prefixes belong to wireline or wholesale carriers, among them Bell Canada, Fibernetics Corporation and TELUS Integrated Communications. A call showing a Athens number therefore nominally comes from a landline, cable or VoIP platform rather than a locally assigned cellphone.

How the allocation was built up

Athens’s dated assignments run from 2007 to 2017. The busiest period was 2005–2009, when 1 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 1 prefixes (33%) 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 Athens is flat.

Athens’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Bell Canada: this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Fibernetics Corporation in 2007. The most recent arrivals are TELUS Integrated Communications (2017) and Fibernetics Corporation (2007), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Athens.

Athens has just 3 prefixes (30,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

No single carrier dominates Athens: the leader, Bell Canada, holds only 33.3% of the prefixes against 2 competitors, a sign of a highly fragmented market where cable companies, mobility brands and VoIP providers weigh as much as the incumbent.

Allocation is mature: only 0.0% of the dated prefixes are less than ten years old, most having been handed out in 2005–2009, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Athens numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a Athens number

Athens is served by 2 overlaid area codes (613 and 343). A 343 number is no more “out of town” than a 613 one; from abroad, dial +1 and the full ten digits.

The numbering neighbourhood

Athens shares area codes 613 and 343 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Ottawa-Hull, Kingston, Belleville, Cornwall, Kanata-Stittsville, Brockville, Smiths Falls and Bancroft. The largest of them, Ottawa-Hull, holds 425 prefixes in 343 and 613; the smallest on the list, Brighton, has just 10.

What a Athens number tells you

A number attached to Athens tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Ontario, most often Bell Canada. It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 3 carriers present here or to a VoIP service usable anywhere. Nor does it tell you who is calling: caller ID can be spoofed, and an Ontario area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Athens: code 613-924 is recorded for Bell Canada, so every 613-924-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Athens, Ontario” there names a rate centre, not a municipality, and several area codes overlay it.

Every Athens prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 3 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Ontario