The area code 647 is assigned to the city of Toronto in Ontario (Canada) in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is an overlay to the area code 416 which was introduced in the year of 1947 by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). With the increase in the number of users, area code 647 was introduced in the year 2001.
Some people might not be aware of the fact that there is another area code of 437 introduced in the year 2013 as an overlay to area code 647. All three area codes serve the same NPA (Numbering Plan Area). As an overlay to 437, area code 387 has already been reserved for the city’s future use. But the predictions say that it might not be required to be introduced until the year 2025.
There have been some changes in the Toronto Area code since its inception. The prime reason for introducing these changes is the consumption rate of the region. Toronto is one of the biggest cities in Canada and the hub of businesses in the province of Ontario hence the rate of exhaustion of phone numbers is still among the highest in the country.
Since the introduction of an overlay area code 647, it has served as a model of preferred solution for the area code exhaustion issue. It provides the carriers with an easy workaround for the number allocation problem. Till 2019, there were only four area codes in Canada that did not have any overlay area code and were still using a seven-digit local dialing system.
Key facts about area code 647
City, Province, Country
It primarily serves Toronto as the biggest city including other smaller cities in the province of Ontario (ON) in Canada (CA)
Canada’s Dialling Code
+1 is the dialing code of Canada.
Time-zone
This area code is located in the eastern time zone also known as America/New_York. It follows EST (Eastern Standard Time) and from mid-march to early November, it follows EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) when daylight saving time is observed.
Standard Time: GMT – 5.00 hours
Daylight saving time: +1:00 hour
Introduction date:
It came into existence on the 5th of March 2001.
Nearby Area Codes:
249, 705 for Sudbury & 289, 365, 905 for Hamilton in the same province of Ontario
Non-Assigned Numbers:
Though the area code 647 was introduced in 2001 keeping in view the rapid increase in the number of users, however, there are still about 2M numbers left to be assigned.
Landline v/s Wireless Ratio:
Wireless holds a major share of 72% whereas 28% share is with the landline.
Assigned v/s Non Assigned Ratio for 647 area code
Though it was introduced in 2001, there are still about 31% is available to be assigned and 69% are already assigned.
The incumbent local exchange carrier for these three area codes is Bell (Canada) and on the other hand, a competitive local exchange carrier for all three area codes is given to companies like Telus, Rogers, etc. Most of the Toronto Bell Canada numbers were allocated disproportionally to the growing mobile phone market and other local cable and VoIP gateways.
647 area code is similar to others is used in the ten-digit dialing system used in Canada. It means that you need to dial the area code even if you are dialing a local number within Toronto.
This type of system makes more sense in making long-distance calls to non-local numbers however with this system, people dialing even a local number have an additional dialing requirement now.
Not only this, people need to dial the right area code if they are calling places that have overlay area codes like the city of Toronto. They need to ensure that they are not only dialing the right number but also the right area code corresponding to that number.
Some people also call it the controversial aggregation of codes in the same area which at times also leads to multiple codes even within the same building and locality.