Phone prefixes in Tusket, NS

In numbers

In-service prefixes

4

Telephone numbers covered

40,000

Carriers

3

Area codes

1

Provinces and territories

1

First assignment

June 22, 2005

Most recent assignment

April 1, 2015

Tusket’s share of its area code

Within area code 902, Tusket accounts for only 4 of 782 prefixes (0.5%): the code is dominated by Halifax and spread over 175 rate centres.

Who holds these numbers

Aliant Telecom (NS) holds the largest share at 2 prefixes, 50.0% of the total, ahead of 2 other carriers. Code by code: in 902, Aliant Telecom (NS) leads with 2 of 4 prefixes ahead of 2 others.

Wireless and wireline

1 of Tusket’s 4 prefixes (25.0%) are held by carriers whose registered name marks a wireless business: Bell Mobility Aliant. Wireline prefixes still outnumber them, carried by Aliant Telecom (NS) 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

Tusket’s dated assignments run from 2005 to 2015. The busiest period was 2005–2009, when 1 prefixes went to 1 carrier. 2 prefixes (50%) 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 Tusket is flat.

Tusket’s oldest prefixes, the ones the register leaves undated, belong to Bell Mobility Aliant and Aliant Telecom (NS): these carriers made up the landscape before competition arrived. The first dated assignment went to Aliant Telecom (NS) in 2005. The most recent arrivals are Bragg Communications Inc. (2015) and Aliant Telecom (NS) (2005), a sign that new carriers are still asking for numbers in Tusket.

Tusket 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.

Aliant Telecom (NS) leads with 50.0% of the prefixes, but 2 competitors have set up in Tusket: 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 2 prefixes go back to the undated monopoly era. New Tusket numbers mostly come out of blocks that were assigned long ago.

2 undated in the register.

Dialling a Tusket number

A single area code, 902, covers Tusket, 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 +1 902 and the seven-digit number.

The numbering neighbourhood

Tusket shares area code 902 with at least 20 other rate centres, including Halifax, Charlottetown, Sydney, New Glasgow, Truro, Bridgewater, Kentville and Amherst. The largest of them, Halifax, holds 163 prefixes in 902; the smallest on the list, Montague, has just 8.

What a Tusket number tells you

A number attached to Tusket tells you that its prefix was issued to a carrier for this rate centre in Nova Scotia, most often Aliant Telecom (NS). It does not tell you where the handset is today: a subscriber may have ported the number to any of the 3 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 Nova Scotia area code is easy to borrow to look local.

Reading a register entry for Tusket: code 902-618 is recorded for Aliant Telecom (NS), so every 902-618-XXXX number (10,000 possible) descends from that assignment. “Tusket, Nova Scotia” there names a rate centre, not a municipality.

Every Tusket prefix

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

Allocated prefixes

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

Elsewhere in Nova Scotia