As announced back in October, the 716 area code needed to move to 10-digit local dialing due to the adoption of 988 as the new 3 digit number for the National Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Crisis Lifeline going live on July 16, 2022. Starting October 24, 2021, carriers were allowed to disable the ability to dial local calls using only 7-digits.
The FCC mandates that “On July 15, 2022, all providers must complete this process in all of the affected area codes in their service areas. On and after this date, local calls dialed with only 7 digits may not be completed, and a recording will inform you that your call cannot be completed as dialed. Consumers must hang up and dial again using the area code and the 7-digit number.”
As of the time of this writing, our provider has not yet disabled 7-digit dialing. If you have not gotten in the habit of dialing local calls using 10-digits, please do so now by dialing a 9 + 10 digit number.
