Area code 710 is a special area code in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international calling ...

(NANP). It was reserved for the

federal government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fe ...

in 1983 for emergency services. Since 1994, the area code has provided access for authorized personnel to the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) in the United States, and the Canadian local exchange carriers, and cellular/PCS networks. Previously, it was an area code in the AT&T Teletypewriter Exchange (TWX) for the northeastern part of the United States.

History

As of December 2006, it had only one working telephone number, 710-627-4387 (710-NCS-GETS) for the

Government Emergency Telecommunications Service The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) is a White House-directed emergency telephone service provided by a division of the Department of Homeland Security. GETS uses enhancements based on existing commercial technology Pur ...

(GETS) in the

National Communications System The National Communications System (NCS) was an office within the United States Department of Homeland Security charged with enabling national security and emergency preparedness communications ( NS/EP telecommunications) using the national teleco ...

(NCS).

Teletypewriter Exchange

Area code 710 was one of three US area codes in the former

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

Teletypewriter Exchange The telex network is a station-to-station switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network, using telegraph-grade connecting circuits for two-way text-based messages. Telex was a major method of sending written messages electroni ...

(TWX) network, sold to

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company cha ...

in 1969 and renamed as Telex II. It covered the US Northeast (New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and West Virginia). The original TWX area codes were 510 in the United States and 610 in Canada. The addition of 710 in the Northeast, 810 in the South (plus Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky) and 910 west of the Mississippi allowed each major city one or more local exchange prefixes in the special area code. The U.S. TWX area codes (510, 710, 810, 910) were decommissioned in 1981. Canada moved its remaining 1 (610) numbers to area code 600 in 1992.

Current usage

The area code is reserved for use by the United States Government. It is used in the

(GETS), is intended for emergencies or crisis situations when the landline network is congested and the probability of completing a normal call is reduced. It provides alternate carrier routing, high probability of completion, trunk queuing and exemptions from network management controls. A special access code of 12 digits is required for using the service. Upon dialing this phone number, a mechanical beep prompts the caller to enter the access code. If a correct code is entered, the caller is prompted to dial the destination number ( area code + number). If an access code is not entered at the beep, the call is redirected to a human operator who asks for the access code.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Area Code 710 Disaster preparedness in the United States

710 __NOTOC__ Year 710 ( DCCX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 710 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar er ...

History

Teletypewriter Exchange

Current usage

See also

References