Numbering Plan for Turks and Caicos Islands

The Telecommunications Ordinance 2004 stipulates under section 26 (1) that the Commission shall have a scheme for – "(a) the numbering of telecommunications services: and (b) the allocation and use of numbers in connection with these services".

Under Part 1 Section 3 (2) of the Telecommunications Numbering Regulations 2005, "The National Numbering Plan shall identify the framework for allocation of blocks of ordinary numbers, exchange codes, short codes, and other unique numbering resources to different classes of Resource Users and applications".

The Telecommunications Commission announces the following Interim National Numbering Plan for the Turks and Caicos Islands

The Turks and Caicos Islands is in the World Zone 1 (WZ1) Plan, Country Code = "1", NPA = 649. The 10-digit North American Numbering Plan (NANP) area address is made up of three parts, in the format NXX-NXX-XXXX:

1. The first group of three characters (NXX) is the Numbering Plan Area Code (NPA);
2. The second group of three characters (NXX) is the Central Office Code (CO Code); and
3. The third group of characters (XXXX) is the subscriber’s line number. In the above format NXX-NXX-XXXX: N = 2 to 9 and X = 0 to 9).

The dialing format for the 649 NPA is as follows:

All home NPA (HNPA), local calls will be dialed on a seven-digit basis with no prefix, i.e.: NXX + XXXX, e.g. 946 1234, where 946 is the NXX, and 1234 is the subscriber number (SN).

World Zone 1 Foreign NPA (FNPA), direct dialed calls will be dialed with a prefix "1" + ten digits", i.e.: 1 + NPA + NXX + Subscriber Number (SN).

For example: 1 + 649 + 946 +1234, where

1 = Prefix 649 = NPA 946 = NXX 1234 = SN

World Zone 2 Foreign NPA (FNPA), direct dialed calls will be dialed with a prefix "011" + ten digits".

Resource allocation or numbering is no longer viewed as a purely technical matter but increasingly as an issue which must address important commercial, political, and economic considerations for telecommunications operators, regulators and policy makers. As a result it is foreseen that the Telecommunications Commission and the Government will have to engage in a continuous process of revision of any Numbering Plan that is implemented.