When phone service first came around, people were assigned numbers much like today. However, most numbers where connected by talking with an operator, and the system was very simple. In many cases, people had party lines, at least in rural areas. This means that many homes would share the same number, and would have to wait until the line was clear to make a call. The numbers out there were limited, but there weren’t many that were needed. Today, people need two and three numbers each, and calling across the country and even the world is common. That means area codes are very important.
Without area codes, your call would not go very far. If you think about how many numbers are in your phone number, you can quickly see why there would not be many to go around. There are only so many number combinations that you can come up with out of those seven numbers. Because the first three numbers are the exchange, that leaves the last for digits within any exchange to work with. That’s not a lot. That means that there had to be a better way to distribute numbers.
By having area codes, the amount of phone numbers multiplies. That means you can use the same numbers and exchanges within many area codes. It’s a way of breaking up the system so that one person can have a number in one area code, and someone else in the next one can have the same one, but the calls will never go in the wrong direction. Think of area codes as road maps for your phone calls. These numbers direct a call to a larger area, the exchange narrows that down to a town, and then the last digits will bring it to your home. Without them, there would never be enough numbers to go around.
Random Area Code Facts:
Some states only have one area code. Those include Alaska, Delaware, Washington DC, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The small area of Manhattan, NY has two area codes because of population and business density.
There are 215 area codes in use in the US today. In 1991, there were only 119.
Texas and California have the most area codes within their state borders.
Blocks of 10,000 phone numbers are given out at a time in any given area code. This may have more to do with the strain on numbers than the need for mobile numbers.