Area codes in the Caribbean

The integration of the Caribbean telephone networks into the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) began with the assignment of area codes in the Caribbean in 1958, when area code 809 was designated for Bermuda and any other potential participant island countries.

From 1958 to 1999, most of the British West Indies in the Caribbean Basin, Bermuda, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico shared area code 809.

By the mid-1990s, with the proliferation of fax machines, mobile phones, computers, and pagers in the region, the pool of available central office codes was exhausting.

By 1999, it was retained only by the Dominican Republic, following the departure of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from using the area code.

Since Cable and Wireless was the provider in most or all cases, the same corporate entity benefited from the revenue for incoming calls.