Phone prefixes in St. Anthony, NL

In numbers

In-service prefixes

5

Telephone numbers covered

50,000

Carriers

4

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

October 24, 2003

Most recent assignment

June 29, 2016

St. Anthony’s share of its area code

Within area code 709, St. Anthony accounts for only 5 of 630 prefixes (0.8%): 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 2 prefixes, 40.0% of the total, ahead of 3 other carriers. Code by code: in 709, Aliant Telecom (NF) leads with 2 of 5 prefixes ahead of 3 others.

Wireless and wireline

2 of St. Anthony’s 5 prefixes (40.0%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility Aliant and TELUS Mobility. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by Aliant Telecom (NF) and Bragg Communications Inc. 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

St. Anthony’s dated assignments run from 2003 to 2016. The busiest period was 2000–2004, when 1 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 1 prefixes (20%) 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 St. Anthony is flat.

St. Anthony’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 2003. The most recent arrivals are Bragg Communications Inc. (2016), TELUS Mobility (2010) and Aliant Telecom (NF) (2005), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in St. Anthony.

St. Anthony has just 5 prefixes (50,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

Aliant Telecom (NF) leads with 40.0% of the prefixes, but 3 competitors have set up in St. Anthony: 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 St. Anthony numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a St. Anthony number

A single area code, 709, covers St. Anthony, 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

St. Anthony 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 St. Anthony number tells you

A number attached to St. Anthony 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: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 4 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 Newfoundland and Labrador area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for St. Anthony: code 709-449 is recorded for Aliant Telecom (NF), so every 709-449-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every St. Anthony prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 5 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Newfoundland and Labrador