Guest Author: Ron Sherman

As a Fax Server Architect (and Systems Administrator), one of my functions is to set up and maintain Least Cost Routing tables. If you have fax servers spread across several states (or countries), you want to route the fax jobs to minimize Toll Costs. This requires knowing about Telephone Area Codes and staying on top of new Area Codes being added. If there are also geographic areas that you want to block (i.e., Caribbean Islands), you also need to know which specific Area Codes are assigned to those areas. Most of the Caribbean Islands are included in the North American three-digit Area Code Numbering Plan, used in the United States and Canada. Long Distance routing is not quite as confusing of an issue as it used to be, when you had one telecommunications company providing your local service, but having to use a separate telecommunications company for long distance calling, particularly between LATA’s (Local Area Transport Area) Boundaries. LATA’s were established as part of the AT&T breakup, in 1984, defining which calls can be placed by your local telephone company (Baby Bells) and which ones required a Long Distance provider. Most telecommunication companies now support specific compliance rules allowing them to provide both Intra-LATA and Inter-LATA calls. There are close to 200 defined LATAs…

To read more of this article, please download the Adobe Acrobat PDF, “The Growth Of Telephone Area Codes In The U.S.”, by Ron Sherman