Phone prefixes in Pictou, NS

In numbers

In-service prefixes

2

Telephone numbers covered

20,000

Carriers

2

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

November 2, 2001

Most recent assignment

November 2, 2001

Pictou’s share of its area code

Within area code 902, Pictou accounts for only 2 of 782 prefixes (0.3%): the code is dominated by Halifax and spread over 175 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Aliant Telecom (NS) holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 50.0% of the total, ahead of 1 other carrier. Code by code: in 902, Aliant Telecom (NS) leads with 1 of 2 prefixes ahead of 1 others.

Wireless and wireline

None of Pictou’s holders carries a mobility brand in its registered name: all 2 prefixes belong to wireline or wholesale carriers, among them Aliant Telecom (NS) and Bragg Communications Inc. A call showing a Pictou number therefore nominally comes from a landline, cable or VoIP platform rather than a locally assigned cellphone.

How the allocation was built up

Pictou’s dated assignments run from 2001 to 2001. The busiest period was 2000–2004, when 1 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 1 prefixes (50%) 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 Pictou is flat.

Pictou’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Aliant Telecom (NS): this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Bragg Communications Inc. in 2001. The most recent arrivals are Bragg Communications Inc. (2001), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Pictou.

Pictou has just 2 prefixes (20,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

Aliant Telecom (NS) leads with 50.0% of the prefixes, but 1 competitors have set up in Pictou: 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 2000–2004, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Pictou numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

Dialling a Pictou number

A single area code, 902, covers Pictou, 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 +1 902 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Pictou shares area code 902 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Halifax, Charlottetown, Sydney, New Glasgow, Truro, Bridgewater, Kentville and Amherst. The largest of them, Halifax, holds 163 prefixes in 902; the smallest on the list, Montague, has just 8.

What a Pictou number tells you

A number attached to Pictou tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Nova Scotia, most often Aliant Telecom (NS). 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 Nova Scotia area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Pictou: code 902-485 is recorded for Aliant Telecom (NS), so every 902-485-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Pictou, Nova Scotia” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Pictou prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 2 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Nova Scotia