Atlanta, GA for example has five different area codes. I get that a large amount of people require more phone numbers, but why not break it up into smaller regions?
In: Technology
In more recent years, the idea of splitting area codes and forcing half of an area code to switch to new phone numbers is pretty unpopular.
As such, many new area codes, such as Atlanta’s new 943 (and earlier 470 and 678, and northwest GA’s 762), are overlays of an existing area: nobody is forced to accept the new overlay area code, but it’s an option available for assigning new numbers.
Often there’s already an area code in the region that’s overloaded, and the demand for new numbers is spread out over that region, so it makes more sense to overlay the new area code in the same place than to change everybody’s phone numbers in half the city.
It’s not that big a deal to have two area codes in the same place, now that all phone numbers are basically ten digits anyway, and long distance calling isn’t expensive. You just learn to recognize one more prefix that refers to Atlanta
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