A researcher is looking for a data set containing phone numbers in Ontario. More specifically, the researcher wants to be able to identify correct area codes and the corresponding exchange numbers. The researcher believes that there are exchange numbers only associated to specific area codes for e.g. the phone number 647-XXXX may only have the 905 area code and not the 289 area code. Does such a data set exist? If so, where can we access it?
Answer
The exchange numbers that you are referring to were once known as Central Office (CO) codes but now are referred to as NPA NXX codes (Numbering Plan Areas NXX).
The Canadian Numbering Administrator website:<http://www.cnac.ca/co_codes/co_code_status.htm#notes> has up-to-date listings for NPA NXX in Canada. It allows you to search based on area code then produces a .txt file that uses commas to parse the data, so you can save the various txt documents and then import them into a spreadsheet, database, etc.
The other option is commercial NPA NXX databases software <http://www.area-codes.com/area-code-database.asp>
The entire NPA NXX is available in a CSV format at <http://www.cnac.ca/data/COCodeStatus_ALL.zip>
