Area code 600
Area code 600 is a rarely used non-geographic Canadian area code, reserved for specialized telecommunication uses such as Teletype, caller-pays cellular, ISDN and mobile satellite communication services. One of the code's most common uses is to provide satellite phone service in remote areas of Northern Canada where conventional telecommunications infrastructure is not available.
Exchanges in the 600 code are assigned according to a special set of guidelines issued by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The guideline does not define which services qualify for the non-geographic numbers, but specifies that:
These uses were designated with the area code 610 in 1962 and reassigned to 600 in 1992 so that 610 could be assigned to Pennsylvania as an ordinary geographic area code.
There are 798 possible +1-600- exchange prefixes. Six relief area codes are reserved by NANPA as subject to assignment in Canada for expansion of non-geographic services but have never been used. There is no area code 666. Each block of 10,000 numbers is assigned to one carrier only; there is no number portability or number pooling in +1-600. A carrier offering multiple, different non-geographic services may request separate exchange prefixes for each.
