Phone prefixes in Dryden, ON

In numbers

In-service prefixes

11

Telephone numbers covered

110,000

Carriers

4

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

October 4, 2007

Most recent assignment

November 12, 2019

Dryden’s share of its area code

Within area code 807, Dryden accounts for only 11 of 293 prefixes (3.8%): the code is dominated by Thunder Bay and spread over 85 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Dryden Municipal Telephone System holds the largest share at 5 prefixes, 45.5% of the total, ahead of 3 other carriers. Code by code: in 807, Dryden Municipal Telephone System leads with 5 of 11 prefixes ahead of 3 others.

Wireless and wireline

5 of Dryden’s 11 prefixes (45.5%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) and Bell Mobility. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by Dryden Municipal Telephone System and TBayTel. 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

Dryden’s dated assignments run from 2007 to 2019. The busiest period was 2010–2014, when 4 prefixes went to 3 carriers. 2 prefixes (18%) 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 Dryden is flat.

Dryden’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Dryden Municipal Telephone System: this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) in 2007. The most recent arrivals are TBayTel (2018), Bell Mobility (2013) and Dryden Municipal Telephone System (2008), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Dryden.

Dryden has only 11 prefixes, or 110,000 numbers: a small rate centre, where the arrival of a single new carrier visibly changes the landscape.

Dryden Municipal Telephone System leads with 45.5% of the prefixes, but 3 competitors have set up in Dryden: 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 2010–2014, and 2 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Dryden numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

2 undated in the register.

Dialling a Dryden number

A single area code, 807, covers Dryden, 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 +1 807 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Dryden shares area code 807 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Thunder Bay, Kenora, Fort Frances, Marathon, Nipigon, Atikokan, Geraldton and Sioux Lookout. The largest of them, Thunder Bay, holds 67 prefixes in 807; the smallest on the list, Jaffray-Melick, has just 2.

What a Dryden number tells you

A number attached to Dryden tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Ontario, most often Dryden Municipal Telephone System. It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 4 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 Dryden: code 807-212 is recorded for Dryden Municipal Telephone System, so every 807-212-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Dryden, Ontario” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Dryden prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 11 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

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