Area Code 203
The concept of Area Codes came into existence in 1947 when AT&T and Bell Laboratories designed a plan to divide the whole country into 18 divisions. There were 18 area codes created originally. Later in due course of time, many more area codes and overlay areas were created to comply with the ever increasing demand for telephones.
Another contributing factor of adding to the area codes is the introduction of cellular services and dial up connections for Internet. With them, demand for more telephone lines were felt and numbers got exhausted and need for additional area codes and overlay plans was felt. Increasing population has been largely responsible for this telecommunication boom as well.
The North American Telephone area code of 203 is earmarked for the southwestern region of Connecticut State. The code 203 encompasses the western edge of the state to the southern coast. Again, from here to New Haven and going on to Hartford is the area covered by 203. And the remaining part of Connecticut falls under the code 860.
The area code 203 serves three counties- Fairfield, New haven and Litchfield. In Aug 1999, the Connecticut Public Utility had proposed an area code overlay for this particular area code. It has been implemented and will be effective from December 12, 2009. The new area code 475 overlays only the area code 203. The residents of the whole Connecticut will need to dial 10-digits from November 14, 2009. This will include the areas under the area code 860.
Area code 203 covers eleven counties, eighty-five cities and 770 telephone exchanges. This statistics prove that it covers quite a large area and cater the requirements of a huge mass. Naturally, all the leading telephone service providers of national and international stature provide efficient service to the residents of Connecticut. The major service providers of this region are Verizon Wireless, AT&T, MCI Telecommunication Corp, Metromedia International Telecommunications, Cingular Wireless, Vonage, Choice One Communications and Frontier Communications. Apart from these, there are many more companies providing telecommunication services in the area under the code 203.
Generally, these companies along with the local ones provide the cellular services, landline connection as well as high-speed Internet connectivity. There are other services provided by them like cable connection and international call facilities. They have toll free numbers for assisting you with your problems pertaining to telecommunication. Some of the companies working in Connecticut have different numbers to address different issues. Some assist you with technical problems, some for billing, some are exclusively for business telephone connections and some for home plans.
Since there is quite a huge clientele for these telephone companies to cater in area code 203, there is a healthy competition to provide exclusive services. As a result, they introduce different plans and packages for home and business plans which will be cost effective. VOIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol is one such cheaper alternative of phone connection. And with the introduction of overlay plan code 475, the vendors are likely not to change the existing numbers to avoid the hassles of their customers.