British Columbia would have likely needed another area code in any event because of the province's growth in the second half of the 20th century, but the split was hastened by Canada's system of number allocation.
Instead, each competitive local exchange carrier is allocated blocks of 10,000 numbers (corresponding to a single prefix) in each rate centre in which it plans to offer service, even in the smallest hamlets.
By the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, 250 was already on the verge of exhaustion, again because of the number allocation problem and the continued proliferation of cell phones, particularly on Vancouver Island and in the larger cities of the interior.
On that date, exchanges in 778 became available to Vancouver Island and interior residents, and a permissive dialling period began across British Columbia during which it was possible to make local calls with either seven or ten digits.
[3] Effective June 23, 2008, ten-digit dialling became mandatory throughout the entire province, and attempts to make a seven-digit call triggered an intercept message with a reminder of the new rule.