Area codes 809, 829, and 849 are telephone

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

s in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated 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, World Numbering Zone ...

(NANP) for the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

. Like all NANP members, the

uses country code ''1'', and has similar dialing procedures for dialing the 10-digit national telephone numbers, which consist of the area code, a three-digit central office code, and a four-digit line number. The three area codes of the country are organized as an

overlay plan In telecommunications, an area code overlay complex is a telephone numbering plan that assigns multiple area codes to the same geographic numbering plan area (NPA). Area code overlays are implemented in territories of the North American Numbe ...

for a single numbering plan area (NPA), comprising the entire country. Thus, 10-digit dialing is mandatory.

Area code 809

Area code 809 was assigned in 1958 to Bermuda and the Caribbean islands. However,

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

, the

Netherlands Antilles The Netherlands Antilles (, ; ), also known as the Dutch Antilles, was a constituent Caribbean country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands consisting of the islands of Saba (island), Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten in the Lesser Antilles, ...

, and the

French West Indies The French West Indies or French Antilles (, ; ) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe, including the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Les Saintes, Ma ...

decided not to participate in the North American Numbering Plan. Beginning with Bermuda in November 1994, and the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Barbados in 1995, several countries in the Caribbean received individual area code assignments from the NANPA, effectively splitting area code 809. By 1999, it was retained only by the Dominican Republic, following the departure of

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the south ...

from using the area code.

Area codes 829 and 849

Area code 829 was added for all of the Dominican Republic to form an all-services distributed overlay on January 31, 2005. Earliest central office assignments were possible on October 1, 2005. The relief was needed because of the growth of

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

communication in the Dominican Republic, starting in the mid-1990s with prepaid telephone cards, and growing quickly through the early 2000s with the launch of two cellphone carriers, Orange (now Altice) and Centennial (now Viva), in addition to the preexisting CODETEL (now Claro Dominicana) and TRICOM (now Altice Dominicana). The expansion in telecommunication services continued and further relief for the numbering resources was needed in 2009, when an additional area code was assigned for the numbering plan area, area code 849. Earliest central office code assignments were possibly on July 1, 2009, but did not occur until 2010.

Calling scam

Telephone fraud scams once involved area code 809; it was being used since calling international numbers from the United States is charged at a higher rate than domestic calls. The charge is set jointly by the originating and terminating countries; the foreign country portion of the charge could be very high, and was not regulated. There may have been a resurgence with wireless telephones. The victim received a message on an answering machine to call a number with an 809 area code. However, the number dialed is an international call with a share of the revenue going from the foreign telephone company to the operator of the number. The victim could be put on hold indefinitely, and billed for each minute. More recently, a similar scam has emerged due to the prevalence of wireless phones which display callback numbers automatically, known as the " one ring scam". The perpetrator of the scam calls the victim via a robodialer or similar means, sometimes during night time, then hangs up after the call is answered with the hope that the receiver will be curious enough to call back, which incurs an automatic $19.95 international fee, as well as $9.00/min thereafter. Similar scams have been linked to Grenada (area code 473), Antigua (area code 268), Jamaica (area code 876) and the British Virgin Islands (area code 284).BBB Warns of One Ring Cell Phone Scam

References

External links

North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA)

regarding the 809 scam
AT&T webpage
regarding the 809 scam and subsequent spam. Retrieved September 17, 2007.

webpage regarding the spammed version of their 809 warning. Retrieved May 7, 2006. {{Area code list 809, 829, 849 Area codes in the Caribbean Communications in the Dominican Republic Telecommunications-related introductions in 1958 Fraud Dominican Republic communications-related lists

Area code 809

Area codes 829 and 849

Calling scam

See also

References

External links