The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) says it has begun assigning a Central Office Code (a number block which contains 10,000) under Jamaica’s new ‘658’ area code.

A Central Office Code is the first three digits which are dialled after the area code when seeking to place a telephone call.

This recent assignment comes after the OUR has run out of Codes to assign under the 876 area code.

The Central Office Codes is assigned telecommunications service providers who then distribute the telephone numbers within a particular code to customers, as needed.

This means that ten-digit 658 telephone numbers will now become available to the public once telecommunications providers have fully allocated the numbers available to them under the 876 area code.

The last seven digits of those telephone numbers may match the last seven digits of numbers previously assigned by operators under the “876” area code.

The OUR in a statement on Tuesday (May 17) urged members of the public to ensure that the ten-digit format is used in the publishing and displaying of all local mobile and landline numbers using the correct area code for each number for example “876” or “658”.

Persons are also urged to adjust the way they record or store phone numbers, to make it clear which area code is applicable to their telephone numbers.

Persons are also reminded that ten-digit dialling extends to local toll-free numbers. Therefore, for all local toll-free numbers, the “1” before the numbers should be removed.

An example of this is the OUR’s local toll-free number, which is displayed as 888-CALL-OUR (888-2255-687).