Maine won’t have to decide the thorny question of which part of the state gets to keep the iconic 207 area code anytime soon.
The latest forecast shows the 207 area code’s dwindling number pool won’t be exhausted until the second quarter of 2029, a full 27 months longer than last fall’s estimate of the first quarter of 2027, according to the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
The utilities commission began closely monitoring the 207 area code’s lifespan in 2018 as the number of service providers in the state increased, placing more demands on the shrinking pool of numbers.
“Since we first became aware of the risk to Maine’s 207 area code, two things have become clear: that preserving the area code is important to the people of Maine and that we have tools to help do so,” Chair Philip L. Bartlett said Wednesday. “Our staff is dedicated to preserving Maine’s single area code as long as possible.”
Rumors of the 207 area code’s exhaustion have become an annual occurrence in recent years. Its last call was forecasted, in 2015, to occur by early 2019. That was then extended to 2024, and again to 2025, 2027 and now 2029.
In 2021, the prospect of splitting Maine into two area codes prompted the state’s congressional delegation to call on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to work with state regulators to save the 207, calling it a “cultural touchstone” and its preservation a “matter of efficiency.”
The utilities commission has investigated numbering practices of carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile to see whether they unnecessarily tie up large blocks of unused numbers within the 207 area code.
The commission said Wednesday it has successfully worked with carriers to return more than 750,000 unused numbers to the 207 pool for future use.
Regulators continue to pursue other options to extend the lifespan of Maine’s 207 area code, which the utilities commission said could become a model for other states.