Phone prefixes in Clair, NB

In numbers

In-service prefixes

3

Telephone numbers covered

30,000

Carriers

3

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

October 16, 2008

Most recent assignment

March 7, 2011

Clair’s share of its area code

Within area code 506, Clair accounts for only 3 of 677 prefixes (0.4%): 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, 33.3% of the total, ahead of 2 other carriers. Code by code: in 506, Aliant Telecom(NB) leads with 1 of 3 prefixes ahead of 2 others.

Wireless and wireline

1 of Clair’s 3 prefixes (33.3%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility Aliant. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by Aliant Telecom(NB) and Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Cable). 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

Clair’s dated assignments run from 2008 to 2011. 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 Clair is flat.

Clair’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 Bell Mobility Aliant in 2008. The most recent arrivals are Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Cable) (2011) and Bell Mobility Aliant (2008), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Clair.

Clair 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 Clair: the leader, Aliant Telecom(NB), 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 Clair numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a Clair number

A single area code, 506, covers Clair, 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

Clair 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 Clair number tells you

A number attached to Clair 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 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 New Brunswick area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Clair: code 506-992 is recorded for Aliant Telecom(NB), so every 506-992-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Clair, New Brunswick” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Clair prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

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

Elsewhere in New Brunswick