Area codes 418, 581, and 367

Also served are the Gaspé Peninsula, Côte-Nord, southeastern Mauricie, and the tiny hamlet of Estcourt Station, in the U.S. state of Maine.

Every competitive local exchange carrier is allocated blocks of 10,000 numbers, which correspond to a single three-digit prefix, for every rate centre in which it plans to offer service, even for small hamlets.

That resulted in thousands of wasted numbers, a problem that was worsened by the proliferation of cellphones and pagers, especially in the larger cities.

The implementation of area code 581 began on June 21, 2008 with the start of a permissive dialing period during which local calls could be made with both seven and ten digits.

However, overlays have become the preferred method of relief in Canada, as they are an easy workaround for the number allocation problem.