Phone prefixes in St. Charles, ON

In numbers

In-service prefixes

4

Telephone numbers covered

40,000

Carriers

4

Area codes

2

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

August 2, 2017

Most recent assignment

May 11, 2022

St. Charles’s share of its area codes

Within area code 249, St. Charles accounts for only 3 of 585 prefixes (0.5%): the code is dominated by Sudbury and spread over 176 rate centres. Within area code 705, St. Charles accounts for only 1 of 770 prefixes (0.1%): the code is dominated by Barrie and spread over 203 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Bell Canada holds the largest share at 1 prefixes, 25.0% of the total, ahead of 3 other carriers. Code by code: in 249, Distributel leads with 1 of 3 prefixes ahead of 2 others; Bell Canada is the only holder in 705. No carrier holds prefixes in every one of St. Charles’s 2 area codes, while 4 appear in just one.

Wireless and wireline

None of St. Charles’s holders carries a mobility brand in its registered name: all 4 prefixes belong to wireline or wholesale carriers, among them Bell Canada, Distributel, Fibernetics Corporation and TELUS Integrated Communications. A call showing a St. Charles number therefore nominally comes from a landline, cable or VoIP platform rather than a locally assigned cellphone.

How the allocation was built up

St. Charles’s dated assignments run from 2017 to 2022. The busiest period was 2015–2019, when 2 prefixes went to 2 carriers. 1 prefixes (25%) 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.

St. Charles’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 TELUS Integrated Communications in 2017. The most recent arrivals are Fibernetics Corporation (2022), Distributel (2018) and TELUS Integrated Communications (2017), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in St. Charles.

St. Charles has just 4 prefixes (40,000 numbers): a very small rate centre, typical of a village or rural area served by a single switching office.

No single carrier dominates St. Charles: the leader, Bell Canada, holds only 25.0% of the prefixes against 3 competitors, a sign of a highly fragmented market where cable companies, mobility brands and VoIP providers weigh as much as the incumbent.

Demand remains steady: 33.3% of the dated prefixes go back to the last ten years, the most active period being 2015–2019. The rate centre is growing at a regular rather than explosive pace.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a St. Charles number

St. Charles is served by 2 overlaid area codes (249 and 705). A 705 number is no more “out of town” than a 249 one; from abroad, dial +1 and the full ten digits.

The numbering neighbourhood

St. Charles shares area codes 249 and 705 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Barrie, Sudbury, Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay, Huntsville, Collingwood and Lindsay. The largest of them, Barrie, holds 92 prefixes in 249 and 705; the smallest on the list, Kirkland Lake, has just 12.

What a St. Charles number tells you

A number attached to St. Charles tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Ontario, most often Bell Canada. 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 an Ontario area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for St. Charles: code 705-867 is recorded for Bell Canada, so every 705-867-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “St. Charles, Ontario” there names a rate centre, not a municipality, and several area codes overlay it.

Every St. Charles prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 4 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Ontario