Phone prefixes in Red Lake, ON

In numbers

In-service prefixes

6

Telephone numbers covered

60,000

Carriers

4

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

March 15, 2007

Most recent assignment

September 21, 2022

Red Lake’s share of its area code

Within area code 807, Red Lake accounts for only 6 of 293 prefixes (2.0%): the code is dominated by Thunder Bay and spread over 85 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) holds the largest share at 3 prefixes, 50.0% of the total, ahead of 3 other carriers. Code by code: in 807, Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) leads with 3 of 6 prefixes ahead of 3 others.

Wireless and wireline

4 of Red Lake’s 6 prefixes (66.7%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) and Bell 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

Red Lake’s dated assignments run from 2007 to 2022. The busiest period was 2005–2009, when 2 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 1 prefixes (17%) carry no date in the register: these are the historic pre-1999 assignments, the wireline bedrock of the rate centre. Since 2020 another 1 prefixes have been added, so the rate centre is still growing.

Red Lake’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Bell Canada: 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 Distributel (2022), Bell Mobility (2014) and Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) (2007), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Red Lake.

Red Lake has just 6 prefixes (60,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) leads with 50.0% of the prefixes, but 3 competitors have set up in Red Lake: a market where the incumbent keeps the edge without exclusivity.

Demand remains steady: 20.0% of the dated prefixes go back to the last ten years, the most active period being 2005–2009. The rate centre is growing at a regular rather than explosive pace.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a Red Lake number

A single area code, 807, covers Red Lake, 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

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

What a Red Lake number tells you

A number attached to Red Lake tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Ontario, most often Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless). It does not tell you where the handset is today: most of Red Lake’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 an Ontario area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Red Lake: code 807-726 is recorded for Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless), so every 807-726-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Red Lake, Ontario” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Red Lake prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 6 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Ontario