Area code 867

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Area code 867 is the area code for the three Canadian territories in the Arctic far north.

+1-867 was created on October 21, 1997 from portions of two existing Canadian area codes. It is the largest land area covered by an area code in Canada. The territorial extent reaches 3,173 km from Cape Dyer on Baffin Island to the Alaska border, and 4,391 km from the south end of James Bay to the North Pole. The largest distances between exchanges are 2,200 km from Sanikiluaq to Grise Fiord, and 3,365 km from Beaver Creek to Pangnirtung. Four different official time zones are observed within the area, though one community, by not observing Daylight Saving Time, effectively shifts between two of those zones.

Nearly all of the eastern Northwest Territories (along with most of western Québec) were originally in area code 819. The Yukon territory and the western portion of the Northwest Territories were originally covered by Alberta area code 403.

Since then, Nunavut has taken over all of the former 819 portion of the Northwest Territories, plus part of the old 403 area. Area code 403 (Calgary, Alberta) has since been further split to create 780 for the northern two-thirds of Alberta, including Edmonton.

The only incumbent local exchange carrier in 867 is Northwestel.

[edit] Places that use this area code

Area code 1-867 covers all points in the three Canadian territories:

nominally ending at the North Pole.

To the extent that exchanges within the territories also serve some customers in adjacent provinces, 867 numbers can also be found in Fraser and Swan Lake, British Columbia (served from Carcross and Swift River, respectively), and Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta (served from Fort Smith). Excluded from this area code is Environment Canada's weather station at Eureka which uses 204 and 613.

Each community only has one central office code, except for:

(Until 1978, only Whitehorse (633, 667, 668) and Hay River (396, 874) had more than one prefix; Hay River was reduced to one (874), while Yellowknife (873) had a second prefix (920) added. Iqaluit (979), Inuvik (777) and Hay River received second prefixes in the 2001-2004 period, and Fort Smith (872) in 2006.)

Northwestel's proposal for a new regulatory regime was approved for 2007, allowing resale of local telephone service, additional central office codes should not be required for competitive carriers wishing to offer local service. If the CRTC in future approves facilities-based local service competition, the expense of deployment would probably limit it to major communities, necessitating additional prefixes only in communities that already have multiple prefixes. Communities that now have only one prefix are not likely to need a second prefix other than for local growth.

[edit] See also


Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory Area Code: 867
North: Country code +7 in Russia at the North Pole
West: 907 area code 867 East: Country code +299 in Greenland
South: 250, 780, 306, 204, 807, 705, 819, 709
Province of British Columbia Area Codes: 250, 604, 778
Province of Quebec area codes: 418, 438, 450, 514, 819
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