Have you received a phone call recently from someone with a 689 area code and wondered where it’s from? It’s coming from Central Florida, but the odds of that number popping up on your screen aren’t high.
Of the 7,920,000 numbers available for 689, the region’s newest area code, 92% of them haven’t been used, the Florida Public Service Commission says.
“They haven’t even been assigned to a carrier yet, much less to a customer,” said Greg Fogleman, a public utilities supervisor for the PSC.
689 was introduced in 2019, covering Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties.
You might remember news stories saying it was coming, or when Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell called it “the worst area code ever.” Then you probably didn’t hear much else.
That’s how Paul Hiebing felt when his company got phone numbers that started with the new area code last year. Hiebing, who lives in Memphis but works remotely for an engineering firm in Maitland, said trying to remember the new number is a challenge every time.
“I have to do some version of that joke of why six is afraid of seven, but I have to tell it like my 5-year-old would,” he said.
(The joke often goes that seven ate nine, not six.)
One suspected reason for the slowness of the rollout is that many people moving to the area keep their old cell phone numbers, area code and all. Fogleman admitted this theory was anecdotal, but added, “No one’s dumping their cell phone that has their family, friends and business contacts.”
The number was created to replace the dwindling supply of 407 numbers. And before you ask, no, there isn’t anything clever related to our location about the number, the way 321 references a rocket countdown for the Space Coast.
“I kept trying to think of a reason we had gotten it,” Hiebing said. “When 321 came out, that was really clever. Someone was really using their noodle.”
Being able to choose specific area codes was something Fogleman asked about as well. “I was told repeatedly and in no uncertain terms, no.”
That’s because the new area codes have already been chosen by the North American Number Planning Administrator since the days of the 321 launch.
“They won’t tell you what they are, but they already have them,” Fogleman said.
If you’ve lived through new area code introductions before and feel like this one has less fanfare, that’s probably because you went through what’s known as a split.
“That’s where you take an area and carve it in two,” Fogleman said. “One part keeps the old area code, one part gets the new one.”
That’s how it was done with 321’s introduction in 1999. At the time, that number replaced the 407 numbers in Brevard and some of the ones in Orange and Seminole. Then NANPA decided to make it only in Brevard, grandfathering in the errant 321s floating around metro Orlando.
In this case, they’ve done what’s called an overlay, adding the new numbers in with the old ones. There hasn’t been a split in the U.S. since 2011 in New Mexico, according to Fogleman. “There’s a lot of expense with those,” he said.
NANPA first planned to rollout 689 in 2003, thinking 407 was about to run out. “Through conservation measures, they managed to stretch it out another 16 years,” Fogleman said.
Phone carriers and other companies are assigned numbers in blocks of 10,000. From there, an office might request a couple thousand for business lines, but then not wind up using them all. But those numbers can still be given to other users as long as they’re in the same area.
The PSC doesn’t have information about how many numbers have been given to users, so they can’t track how fast the uptake is. Forecasts are made using reported sales and expectations from phone companies. “If they have overly optimistic expectations, then you may get a shorter forecast,” Fogleman said.
While Fogleman acknowledges it probably isn’t a lot of numbers yet, he points out a lot more devices get phone numbers now than in the past.
“If you have a GM car with OnStar, even if you’re not using it … it has a number,” he said. “I have a smart watch that has a cell number assigned to it.”
In June, there will be a new 448 area code in the Panhandle, and next year will see the Tampa Bay region get 656.
NANPA is predicting 689 will last until 2070, but no word on what digits will come next.
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