General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do Phone Number "Area Codes" Actually Matter Anymore? [View all]Pab Sungenis
(9,612 posts)and VOIP you can be anywhere with any number. For a while, to stay in touch with family, I had numbers here in New Jersey, in Buffalo, NY, and in Leeds, United Kingdom, all of which rang my home number.
As for 666, it's reserved because area codes with repeated second-and-third digits are reserved as "easily recognizable" and saved for special purposes. All of the "8xx" (822, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, 888, 899, 800) area codes are allocated for toll-free use (even if we haven't gone lower than 855 or used 899 so far). Nevada asked for "777" when the 702 area code split, for example, and were turned down. They got 775 instead.
There's a logic behind the original area codes, believe it or not. 201 was assigned to New Jersey (then Northern NJ, now a small part of Northern NJ) because that's where Bell Labs was located and they were given the honor of having the first (lowest possible number) area code at the time. New York got 212 because it required the shortest "pull" of all possible area codes. 213, 312, 313 were assigned to other large metropolitan areas for the same reason.
My favorite area code is the "Space Coast" in Brevard County, Florida, which requested and got "321" when area codes with numbers other than 0 or 1 began to be allocated.