Area codes 704 and 980


Area codes 704 and 980 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan for Charlotte and all or part of twelve surrounding counties in south-central North Carolina. Other major cities in the service area are Gastonia, Kannapolis, Concord, Mooresville, Salisbury, Statesville, and Shelby. The South Carolina side of the Charlotte metropolitan area is part of area codes 803 and 839. Area code 704 is one the original area codes assigned to numbering plan areas by AT&T in October 1947. Area code 980 was added in an overlay numbering plan in 2000, when the original numbering plan area had already been reduced by splits in 1954, yielding area code 919, and in 1998 with the establishment of area code 828.

History

The original area code, 704, was one of the original 86 numbering plan areas designated by AT&T in 1947, and originally covered the entire state of North Carolina. In 1954, the eastern two-thirds of the state–everything from Winston-Salem eastward–was split off as area code 919. 704 was reduced to the western third of the state, from Charlotte through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Tennessee border.
This configuration remained in place for the next 44 years. Despite explosive growth in Charlotte, the state's largest city, the western third of the state was not as densely populated as the eastern two-thirds, which grew from having one area code to four during the 1990s. However, by the mid-1990s, Charlotte's rapid growth and the ensuing demand for telephone lines made a split inevitable. In 1998, most of the western portion of the old 704 territory, including the Foothills and Blue Ridge, were split off to create area code 828, restricting 704 to the Charlotte area.
The creation of 828 was intended as a long-term solution. Within two years, however, 704 was close to exhaustion once again due to Charlotte's continued growth, as well as the proliferation of cell phones and pagers.
To solve the problem, it was decided to assign 980 to Charlotte as North Carolina's first overlay. 980 entered service on May 1, 2000. On that date, a permissive dialing period began in which both seven- and ten-digit calls were both allowed. As of January 10, 2001, ten-digit dialing was mandatory. The first 980 numbers were assigned on February 10, 2001.
Even with the Charlotte area's continued growth, the 704/980 numbering pool is not under threat of exhaustion until at least mid-2047.
Years after the introduction of mobile number portability, a number of cell phone customers on the South Carolina side of the Charlotte area have 704 numbers.

Service area

Counties