Phone prefixes in Cambridge Bay, NU

In numbers

In-service prefixes

3

Telephone numbers covered

30,000

Carriers

3

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

February 3, 2016

Most recent assignment

May 20, 2016

Cambridge Bay’s share of its area code

Within area code 867, Cambridge Bay accounts for only 3 of 258 prefixes (1.2%): the code is dominated by Yellowknife and spread over 75 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Bell Mobility holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 33.3% of the total, ahead of 2 other carriers. Code by code: in 867, Bell Mobility leads with 1 of 3 prefixes ahead of 2 others.

Wireless and wireline

1 of Cambridge Bay’s 3 prefixes (33.3%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by Northwestel and SSi Micro Ltd. This is a sort by name, not a licence lookup, and a mobile prefix may have been ported to another network since.

How the allocation was built up

Cambridge Bay’s dated assignments run from 2016 to 2016. The busiest period was 2015–2019, when 2 prefixes went to 2 carriers. 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 Cambridge Bay is flat.

Cambridge Bay’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Northwestel: this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Bell Mobility in 2016. The most recent arrivals are SSi Micro Ltd. (2016) and Bell Mobility (2016), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Cambridge Bay.

Cambridge Bay 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 Cambridge Bay: the leader, Bell Mobility, 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 2015–2019, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Cambridge Bay numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

Dialling a Cambridge Bay number

A single area code, 867, covers Cambridge Bay, 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 +1 867 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Cambridge Bay shares area code 867 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Iqaluit, Inuvik, Behchoko, Tuktoyaktuk, Arviat and Dawson City. The largest of them, Yellowknife, holds 35 prefixes in 867; the smallest on the list, Kimmirut, has just 3.

What a Cambridge Bay number tells you

A number attached to Cambridge Bay tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Nunavut, most often Bell Mobility. 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 a Nunavut area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Cambridge Bay: code 867-391 is recorded for Bell Mobility, so every 867-391-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Cambridge Bay, Nunavut” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Cambridge Bay prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

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

Elsewhere in Nunavut