Area code 807 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the Canadian province of Ontario. The numbering plan area (NPA), comprising only Northwestern Ontario, was created in early 1962 in an area code split of NPA 705. The main reason for the split was not central office prefix exhaustion, but routing efficiency for calls from Western Canada to northwestern Ontario.[citation needed]
Major communities served by area code 807 include Thunder Bay, Kenora, Dryden, Fort Frances, Rainy River, Marathon, and Greenstone. The area is split between the Central and Eastern Time Zones.
The incumbent local exchange carriers in the numbering plan area are Tbaytel, Bell Canada, and Bell Aliant's Dryden Municipal Telephone Service.
The numbering plan area is one of the least populated in Canada. Fewer than 40% of its telephone numbers are in use and the Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium (CNAC) estimates that it will not be exhausted for many decades. In the turn of the 3rd millennium, as area code 705 neared exhaustion, the CNAC briefly considered "erasing" the 807-705 boundary and turning 807 into an overlay complex for all of Ontario north and west of the Golden Horseshoe. However, the potential for confusion adivsed against the implementation. As a result, 807 is the only area code in Ontario without an overlay, and hence the only one that still allows seven-digit dialing. The only other Canadian area codes without overlay are 709 and 867.[1]
In August 2022, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ordered a transition to the three-digit code 988 for suicide prevention resources.[2] Although 988 is not in use as a local exchange prefix in area code 807,[3] the CRTC mandated ten-digit local calling by 31 May 2023. The CRTC's decision followed the decision of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to adopt 988 for the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.[4]