Phone prefixes in Fogo, NL

In numbers

In-service prefixes

3

Telephone numbers covered

30,000

Carriers

3

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

May 31, 2006

Most recent assignment

August 10, 2015

Fogo’s share of its area code

Within area code 709, Fogo accounts for only 3 of 630 prefixes (0.5%): the code is dominated by St. John's and spread over 209 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Aliant Telecom (NF) holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 33.3% of the total, ahead of 2 other carriers. Code by code: in 709, Aliant Telecom (NF) leads with 1 of 3 prefixes ahead of 2 others.

Wireless and wireline

2 of Fogo’s 3 prefixes (66.7%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility Aliant and TELUS Mobility. That makes this a mostly mobile rate centre, which is typical of recent allocations: new prefixes go overwhelmingly to cellphones. 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

Fogo’s dated assignments run from 2006 to 2015. 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 Fogo is flat.

Fogo’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Aliant Telecom (NF): this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Bell Mobility Aliant in 2006. The most recent arrivals are TELUS Mobility (2015) and Bell Mobility Aliant (2006), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Fogo.

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

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a Fogo number

A single area code, 709, covers Fogo, 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 +1 709 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Fogo shares area code 709 with at least 20 other rate centres, including St. John's, Corner Brook, Clarenville, Carbonear, Gander, Marystown, Bay Roberts and Labrador City - Wabush. The largest of them, St. John's, holds 100 prefixes in 709; the smallest on the list, Glovertown, has just 5.

What a Fogo number tells you

A number attached to Fogo tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Newfoundland and Labrador, most often Aliant Telecom (NF). It does not tell you where the handset is today: most of Fogo’s prefixes are mobile, and a cellphone keeps its number when its owner moves across the country. Nor does it tell you who is calling: caller ID can be spoofed, and a Newfoundland and Labrador area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Fogo: code 709-266 is recorded for Aliant Telecom (NF), so every 709-266-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Fogo, Newfoundland and Labrador” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Fogo prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

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

Elsewhere in Newfoundland and Labrador