Area codes 610 and 484

Area code 716 Area code 585 Area code 845 Area code 607 Area code 570 Area code 862/973 Area code 908 Area code 609 Area code 215/267 Area code 717 Area code 302 Area code 856 Area code 412/878 Area code 814 Area code 410/443 Area code 240/301 Area code 724/878 Area code 440 Area code 234/330 Area code 304/681Area code 484
Pennsylvania in blue with Area Code 484 shown in red. This map is clickable; click on a neighboring area code to go to the page for that code.

Area codes 610 and 484 are telephone area codes which serve the eastern and southeastern regions of Pennsylvania. The area includes areas to the west of Philadelphia, along with the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Reading. It includes much of the Delaware Valley, including most of the Philadelphia Main Line.

History

Created in anticipation of number exhaustion in the area code 215 serving the whole of southeastern Pennsylvania, area code 610 was split off on the morning of January 8, 1994, with a year-long permissive dialing period ending on the morning of January 7, 1995.[1] It was Pennsylvania's first new area code since the implementation of the area code system in 1947.

Three exchanges which would have gone into 610 were instead switched to 717, the area code for most of the eastern half of the state outside of the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys. They were 267 at Denver, 445 at Terre Hill, and 484 at Adamstown, with 267 being replaced by 717-336 because 717-267 was already in use at Chambersburg. These exchanges were all served by non-Bell telephone companies which sought to consolidate their service in one area code, and would have had to change area codes anyway.

Further growth in the region over the subsequent five years spurred the introduction of overlay plans in the Commonwealth, with area code 484 being overlaid upon 610 on June 5, 1999, along with the introduction of mandatory ten-digit dialing.[2] The implementation of 484 was hastened because the entire state of Delaware is part of the Philadelphia LATA, meaning several exchanges in Delaware's 302 weren't available for use.

Area code 835 was to be an additional overlay onto 610 and 484, announced by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission in May 2000 and to be implemented in 2001, but newly developed, more efficient number pooling measures were introduced instead, eliminating the immediate need for the new area code. The Commission formally withdrew plans for the new code on June 23, 2005, although the code remains reserved for later use within the Commonwealth if necessary.[3]

Area code 610 holds the distinction of being the last area code number to be assigned that had a "1" (one) for its middle digit. When area codes were introduced in 1947, all numbers followed the pattern N0X or N1X (where the middle digit was either a zero or one). By 1994, area code 610 was the last remaining number in this group. The next new area codes after 610 to be assigned (334 in Alabama and 360 in Washington, both in 1995) were the first to have numbers other than 0 or 1 for their middle digits.

Areas utilizing this area code Allentown, Bethlehem, Catasauqua, Chadds Ford, Chester, Christiana, Easton, Emmaus, Exton, Folsom, Gap, Hamburg, Kutztown, Lehighton, Macungie, Media, Newtown Square, North Catasauqua, Northampton, Palmerton, Paoli, Pottstown, Reading, Shillington, Sinking Spring, Tamaqua, Upper Darby, West Chester, Whitehall Township, Willistown, Wind Gap, Wyomissing

Counties served

Prior usage for TWX

Most of the N10 area codes (510, 710, 810, and 910) were used prior to 1981 by AT&T for their TWX, or TeletypeWriter eXchange network. US numbers in these area codes were decommissioned for TWX usage in 1981 when Western Union, who had acquired the TWX network in 1969 from AT&T and renamed it Telex II, upgraded the network to "4-row" ASCII operation (it previously used both "3-row" Baudot and ASCII transmission).

Area code 510 was reassigned to Oakland, California in 1991, 710 went to the US federal government in 1983, 810 and 910 were given to Flint, Michigan and Wilmington, North Carolina in 1993. This left 610 as the last teletypewriter area code, which outlived the others because it was controlled by Bell Canada and therefore not directly affected by AT&T's exit from teletype. The +1-610 code was replaced by non-geographic Canadian area code 600 in 1992, liberating the numbers for reassignment to plain old telephone service.

This leaves 610 (as reassigned in 1994) as the last geographic area code to follow the original pattern of a 1 or 0 in the middle digit. Codes assigned from 1995 onward break this pattern, requiring every long-distance call (even within an area code) to be dialed with all eleven digits.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bellcore Letter Number IL-93/01-001
  2. ↑ "Area Codes in Southeast Pennsylvania", Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission
  3. ↑ "PUC withdraws 835 overlay in 610/484 area codes", Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, June 23, 2005

External links

Pennsylvania area codes: 215, 267, 272, 412, 484, 570, 610, 717, 724, 814, 878
North: 570/272
West: 717 610/484 East: 215/267, 856, 609, 908
South: 302, 410/443, 856
Delaware area codes: 302
Maryland area codes: 240/301, 410/443/667
New Jersey area codes: 201, 551, 609, 732, 848, 856, 862, 908, 973

Coordinates: 40°05′10″N 75°21′25″W / 40.086°N 75.357°W / 40.086; -75.357

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