Phone prefixes in Swan Hills, AB

In numbers

In-service prefixes

7

Telephone numbers covered

70,000

Carriers

4

Area codes

2

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

March 2, 2006

Most recent assignment

November 11, 2013

Swan Hills’s share of its area codes

Within area code 780, Swan Hills accounts for only 5 of 780 prefixes (0.6%): the code is dominated by Edmonton and spread over 195 rate centres. Within area code 587, Swan Hills accounts for only 2 of 779 prefixes (0.3%): the code is dominated by Calgary and spread over 137 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) holds the largest share at 3 prefixes, 42.9% of the total, ahead of 3 other carriers. Code by code: in 780, TELUS leads with 2 of 5 prefixes ahead of 3 others; Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) is the only holder in 587. 1 carrier holds prefixes in every one of Swan Hills’s 2 area codes, while 3 appear in just one.

Wireless and wireline

5 of Swan Hills’s 7 prefixes (71.4%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless), Bell Mobility and TELUS 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

Swan Hills’s dated assignments run from 2006 to 2013. The busiest period was 2005–2009, when 4 prefixes went to 4 carriers. 1 prefixes (14%) 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 Swan Hills is flat.

Swan Hills’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 Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless) in 2006. The most recent arrivals are TELUS Mobility (2007), Bell Mobility (2007) and TELUS (2006), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Swan Hills.

Swan Hills has just 7 prefixes (70,000 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 42.9% of the prefixes, but 3 competitors have set up in Swan Hills: 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 2005–2009, and 1 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Swan Hills numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

1 undated in the register.

Dialling a Swan Hills number

Swan Hills is served by 2 overlaid area codes (780 and 587). A 587 number is no more “out of town” than a 780 one; from abroad, dial +1 and the full ten digits.

The numbering neighbourhood

Swan Hills shares area codes 780 and 587 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Sherwood Park, Red Deer, St. Albert and Lloydminster. The largest of them, Edmonton, holds 398 prefixes in 587 and 780; the smallest on the list, Slave Lake, has just 12.

What a Swan Hills number tells you

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

Reading a register entry for Swan Hills: code 780-256 is recorded for Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (Wireless), so every 780-256-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Swan Hills, Alberta” there names a rate centre, not a municipality, and several area codes overlay it.

Every Swan Hills prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

All 7 in-service prefixes, grouped by rate centre.

Elsewhere in Alberta