Houston, you’re getting a new area code.
On Wednesday, the Public Utility Commission of Texas announced they’ve approved the addition of 621 for the Houston area to keep up with the population growth we are seeing here in Southeast Texas. The 621 area code joins the other ones in Houston — 281, 346, 832 and the original 713.
Customers will get the 621 area code once all numbers are with the existing area codes are exhausted. The PUCT expects the addition of 621 will hold us over for another nine years.
The new area code won’t affect existing phone numbers.
See here for the background, and here for the PUCT’s press release. As noted, the 346 area code was rolled out in 2013, so that estimate of nine years before another code is needed is probably pretty accurate. That release, by the way, says that the OG 713 area code “was created in 1947 as one of the original four numbering plan areas (NPA) assigned to Texas”. I assume that 214 and 512 were also among those four, but I’m not sure which would have been the fourth – I figure it’s either 915 or 806. I spent three years in the early nineties as the tech support department for a small software company and I made calls to pretty much every existing area code at that time. I could have told you the code for almost any city or state, or the city/state associated with a code back then, it was so much a part of my daily existence. Once the new codes with something other than a 0 or 1 came on the scene, circa 1994 or so, that was the end of that. Anyway, look for the 621 code at a business or home near you soon. The Chron has more.
915 was the fourth original Texas area code (along with 214, 512, and 713) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_North_American_area_codes
Also from that source, the original area codes with a middle number of 0 were in states/provinces/districts with only one area code and with a middle number of 1 had multiple area codes.