Area code 803
Area codes came into being in the year 1947. The concept of area codes was introduced by AT&T and Bell Laboratories. The idea was conceived in the years 1940, yet it came to be conceptualized only 7 years hence. All the states of the United States of America and Canada were allotted telephone area codes. At the beginning only 86 area codes were formed.
However, in those days they were enough to cover the entire nation. There were of course a few provinces and states that had to be offered more than one area code. In such cases area codes of three digits were assigned. These area codes had the digit '1' in between. 916 and 213 are a few of such area codes. The first and the third numbers of the telephone area codes depended on the density of the population of the particular region. Greater the size of the population, smaller would be the first and the third digits of the area code, and lesser the size of population, greater would be the population size.
This was basically because of the telephones that were used during that time. One had to pull the digits. As the shorter digits like '1' and '2' had shorter pulls, they were allotted to thickly populated regions, and the digits like '8' and '9' were the first and the third digits of the sparsely populated regions. For example, the city of New York City was allotted the area code 212, where as the neighboring suburbs were assigned the code 914. Of the most original codes are 418, 514, 306, and 613 from Canada. The earlier U.S codes include 205, 602, 213, and 916.
Another original code formed in the year 1947 is the telephone area code 803. This area code is still serving the metropolitan areas of South Carolina and Columbia. Also, the sand hills area of South Carolina is served by this area code. Though, South Carolina is covered by three area codes namely, 843, 864, and 803, the later covers a major part and 46 counties of the state.
These counties include Abbeville, Allendale, Bamberg, Anderson, Aiken, Barnwell, Beaufort, and Berkeley among others. As per the census carried out in the year 2000, population of 4, 012, 012 is covered by the area code 802. A large number of Hispanic and a considerable number of Asian population is also included in this mass. Over thirteen thousand of them are Indians and a significant number of people are Hawaiian.
There are a number of telephone companies that provide services to the state of South Carolina and use the area code 803. West Carolina Rural Telephone Cooperative, Farmers Telephone Cooperative, Sandhill Telephone Cooperative, Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative, Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative, and Horry Telephone Cooperative are a few of the names of telecommunication providers which are popular with the inhabitants of South Carolina. These telephone companies compete with each other to provide the best of services to the citizens. The services offered by them include land line telephones, cellular phone services, high speed internet and cable connections.