Phone prefixes in Smithers, BC

In numbers

In-service prefixes

9

Telephone numbers covered

90,000

Carriers

7

Area codes

3

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

November 16, 2004

Most recent assignment

October 27, 2020

Smithers’s share of its area codes

Within area code 250, Smithers accounts for only 5 of 781 prefixes (0.6%): the code is dominated by Victoria and spread over 268 rate centres. Within area code 778, Smithers accounts for only 3 of 779 prefixes (0.4%): the code is dominated by Vancouver and spread over 159 rate centres. Within area code 236, Smithers accounts for only 1 of 730 prefixes (0.1%): the code is dominated by Vancouver and spread over 269 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

TELUS holds the largest share at 3 prefixes, 33.3% of the total, ahead of 6 other carriers. Code by code: in 250, TELUS leads with 3 of 5 prefixes ahead of 2 others; in 778, CityWest Cable (North) Corp - BC leads with 1 of 3 prefixes ahead of 2 others; Bell West Inc. is the only holder in 236. No carrier holds prefixes in every one of Smithers’s 3 area codes, while 7 appear in just one.

Wireless and wireline

3 of Smithers’s 9 prefixes (33.3%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility, Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) and TELUS Mobility. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by TELUS, Bell West Inc, CityWest Cable (North) Corp - BC and Navigata Communications Limited. 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

Smithers’s dated assignments run from 2004 to 2020. The busiest period was 2005–2009, when 3 prefixes went to 3 carriers. 2 prefixes (22%) 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.

Smithers’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to TELUS: this carrier made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to TELUS in 2004. The most recent arrivals are Bell West Inc. (2020), Navigata Communications Limited (2015) and CityWest Cable (North) Corp - BC (2014), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Smithers.

Smithers has just 9 prefixes (90,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

No single carrier dominates Smithers: the leader, TELUS, holds only 33.3% of the prefixes against 6 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 14.3% of the dated prefixes are less than ten years old, most having been handed out in 2005–2009, and 2 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Smithers numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

2 undated in the register.

Dialling a Smithers number

Smithers is served by 3 overlaid area codes (250, 778 and 236). A 236 number is no more “out of town” than a 250 one; from abroad, dial +1 and the full ten digits.

The numbering neighbourhood

Smithers shares area codes 250, 778 and 236 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, New Westminster, Nanaimo, South Kamloops, Prince George and Abbotsford. The largest of them, Vancouver, holds 314 prefixes in 236 and 778; the smallest on the list, North Vancouver, has just 21.

What a Smithers number tells you

A number attached to Smithers tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in British Columbia, most often TELUS. It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 7 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 British Columbia area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Smithers: code 250-847 is recorded for TELUS, so every 250-847-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Smithers, British Columbia” there names a rate centre, not a municipality, and several area codes overlay it.

Every Smithers prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 9 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in British Columbia