Area code 717

Area code 717 is a telephone area code which serves South Central Pennsylvania. The numbering plan area covers the Harrisburg, Lancaster and York metropolitan areas with a population of nearly two million people, as well as most of the area generally known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

Contents

• Area code 717
• Service area
• References

717 was one of the original area codes established in 1947. The original numbering plan area (NPA) covered the eastern half of the state except for the Delaware and Lehigh valleys. It stretched from the Maryland border to the south to the New York and New Jersey borders, making it the largest of Pennsylvania's original four plan areas and the second-largest east of the Mississippi River that did not cover an entire state, after Michigan's NPA 616.

Despite the presence of five of the state's 15 largest cities (Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre), this part of Pennsylvania is not as densely populated as the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys. As a result, for the next 41 years, 717 was the largest numbering plan area on the Eastern Seaboard. It was pushed slightly eastward in 1994 as part of the split of Philadelphia's area code 215, when a number of outer Philadelphia suburbs that were slated to transfer to area code 610 were instead shifted to 717. These areas were served by non-Bell telephone companies who wanted to consolidate their eastern Pennsylvania customers into a single area code.

By the mid-1990s, the proliferation of cell phones, pagers, and fax machines required another area code. NPA 717 was split on December 5, 1998, when the northern portion, centered on Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport, received area code 570.

As of May 2005, the subscriber number pool of 717 was allocated by 52%.

The Pennsylvania Utility Commission determined in 2010 that 717 will likely exhaust by the second quarter of 2018. Under consideration for relief were an overlay the numbering plan area with a second area code, or a split along an east-west boundary. An overlay requires ten-digit dialing in the territory, while the latter preserves seven-digit dialing. Most of those who testified in a public hearing supported an overlay as a cost-effective solution. In October 2016, an overlay area code, 223, was approved, to become effective in 2017. The effective date has been announced as August 26, 2017. When 223 enters service, it will break seven-digit dialing in the eastern half of Pennsylvania. The only portion of the Commonwealth that has not been overlaid to date is 814.