Area code 506
Area code 506 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The area code was created in 1955 in a split of numbering plan area (NPA) 902. History. The Maritimes provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island) were designated as a single numbering plan area (NPA) in 1947, when the North American Numbering Plan was inaugurated in Canada and the United States, receiving area code 902. After the addition of Newfoundland in 1949, New Brunswick and Newfoundland were split off in 1955 with area code  506. This configuration existed only until 1962, when Newfoundland was assigned area code 709, leaving New Brunswick as a distinct numbering plan area, with area code 506. Since this persists until today without any overlay code, seven-digit dialing is still possible in New Brunswick, along with numbering plan areas 709, 807, and 867 in Canada, but this will change (see details below). Area code 506 was expected to face numbering exhaustion in 2020, and was to be overlaid with area code 428, beginning November 21, 2020, with permissive ten-digit dialing to start in May 2020. Later, the projected  exhaust date was delayed to April 2023 and the implementation date was postponed to April 23, 2022. However, the projected exhaust date was delayed to December 2023 and the implementation date had therefore been postponed to April 29, 2023. The incumbent local exchange carrier for area code 506 is Bell Aliant, which was produced from a merger that included NBTel. Since 2005, local telephone service through Eastlink Communications has also been available in the town of Sackville. This province has the central office code 988. Per CRTC's decision in June 2021, 10-digit dialing will be implemented soon, possibly  before any overlay takes place, because that prefix is slated to become a three-digit code for suicide prevention, modelling after FCC's use of 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in U.S.