Area code 670
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The area code 670 is the local telephone area code for the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (NMI). It was created in July 1, 1997 and replaced the previous International Telecommunication Union country code 670.
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[edit] Country Code 670
The country code 670 was originally assigned to the former Portuguese colony of East Timor and was discontinued after East Timor was annexed by Indonesia in 1975. After the Northern Marianas vacated this country code in 1998, 670 was reallocated to East Timor in 2000.
[edit] History
Although the NMI became a commonwealth in 1978 and the United States assumed sovereignty in 1986, calling between the NMI and the rest of the United States remained an international call (011-670-XXX-XXXX). As international calling rates began to fall in the more competitive destination countries during the 1990s, it became a considerable financial burden for people calling between the U.S. Mainland and the NMI.
After the NMI was added to the North American Numbering Plan, the FCC regulated calls to and from the NMI as "domestic", hence dramatically lowered the cost of these telephone calls. This change also opened up national toll-free numbers to callers from the NMI, which became very popular with the advent of pre-paid phone cards.
However, since no mobile telephone carriers in the U.S. are present on the NMI, cellular calls to NMI are not considered "domestic" or within the definition of "nationwide long distance".
[edit] Cost of International Calls
FCC's regulation of NMI as "domestic" has no legal effect for telephone carriers outside the United States, for whom the NMI is often not a competitive destination. Therefore, calls from other countries inbound to the NMI can still be relatively expensive, especially compared to outbound calls from the NMI since the NMI has access to most U.S. toll-free numbers.
[edit] Dialing
Within the islands, only the seven-digit phone number is necessary. When a person in the islands calls anywhere in the United States or Canada, he or she simply dials 1 and then the area code and phone number. For callers in the US or Canada calling to the islands, one first dials 1-670, followed by the seven-digit phone number.
