Phone prefixes in Fort Smith, NT

In numbers

In-service prefixes

3

Telephone numbers covered

30,000

Carriers

2

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

January 23, 2006

Most recent assignment

August 29, 2008

Fort Smith’s share of its area code

Within area code 867, Fort Smith 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

Northwestel holds the largest share at 2 prefixes, 66.7% of the total, ahead of 1 other carrier. Code by code: in 867, Northwestel leads with 2 of 3 prefixes ahead of 1 others.

Wireless and wireline

1 of Fort Smith’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. 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

Fort Smith’s dated assignments run from 2006 to 2008. The busiest period was 2005–2009, 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 Fort Smith is flat.

Fort Smith’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 Northwestel in 2006. The most recent arrivals are Bell Mobility (2008) and Northwestel (2006), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Fort Smith.

Fort Smith 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.

Northwestel leads with 66.7% of the prefixes, but 1 competitors have set up in Fort Smith: 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 2005–2009, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Fort Smith numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

Dialling a Fort Smith number

A single area code, 867, covers Fort Smith, 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

Fort Smith 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 Fort Smith number tells you

A number attached to Fort Smith tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Northwest Territories, most often Northwestel. It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 2 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 Northwest Territories area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Fort Smith: code 867-870 is recorded for Northwestel, so every 867-870-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Fort Smith, Northwest Territories” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Fort Smith prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

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

Elsewhere in Northwest Territories