After more than half a century, the District’s beloved 202 area code is running out of numbers.
The impending shortage, announced recently by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), means the District will have to add a second area code by the end of 2022, when residents are expected to have exhausted all numbers beginning with 202.
The next D.C. area code is expected to be announced by the end of the year, according to Beth Sprague, director of NANPA, before it is rolled out in stages in mid-2022.
“There is a lot of pride in the District of Columbia built up around our area code, so this is a big decision,” D.C. Public Service Commission Chairman Willie Phillips said Tuesday in a virtual public hearing to discuss a petition from NANPA to add a new area code.
A centerpiece of local paraphernalia and a touchstone of homegrown music, the 202 has become synonymous with D.C. pride since its inception in 1947 as one of the first nationally recognized area codes. But more than 70 years later, the city’s booming cellular usage and growing population have dried up almost all of the 7 million original numbers once available following 202. As of Aug. 20, Sprague said there are only 23 “prefixes” — which are the first three numbers following the area code — still ready for use.
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The new area code will apply citywide in the same areas where 202 is used. With more than one area code assigned to the same region instead of splitting area codes geographically, the “overlay” avoids exacerbating chasms between rural and suburban areas that have had different triplets assigned to them. It also means that customers who have secured their coveted 202 area codes can keep their numbers regardless of where they live instead of having to adopt a new area code had it been assigned based on geography.
As a result of the looming change, District residents will soon have to adjust to 10-digit dialing, a shift from the seven-digit dialing available with only one area code in use. Following six months of network preparation, which began in August, NANPA and the D.C. Public Service Commission will kick-start a customer education program to inform residents of the switch.
The area code addition, while the first in the District’s history, is not specific to the nation’s capital. Cities across the country have been adding and replacing area codes over the past decades, as cellphones have proliferated so quickly that they have exhausted catalogues of available numbers. But that does not make it any less emotional for locals who have long associated 202 with home.
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“Everybody loves the 202,” Phillips said, adding that having a new number “with connection to the people would be great.”
Carl Mason, a District resident, joined Tuesday’s virtual meeting with a suggestion for the new area code: 852, the initials of his deceased friend who had lived in every ward in the city.
“I wanted to come and find a way to honor him, and I thought this would be one of the best ways,” he said.
But according to Sprague, local residents will have little say in the new triplet associated with the District.
“It is up to NANPA to say what the area code is,” she said, adding that “the 202 is not going away.”
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