State Arkansas | ||
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Cities Jonesboro, Pine Bluff, Paragould, Mountain Home, West Memphis | ||
Area code 870 is a telephone area code serving Arkansas, created on April 14, 1997, excluding the metropolitan areas surrounding Little Rock, Fort Smith, and Fayetteville/Springdale/Rogers. Major cities in the coverage area include Jonesboro, Mountain Home, Pine Bluff, Texarkana, and West Memphis.
The area code was the first to split from Arkansas's original area code—501. The supply of unassigned phone numbers for 870 was projected to run out sometime in 2013, according to the Arkansas Public Service Commission, prompting a December 2009 approval of a plan for an eventual overlay area code in this portion of the state. The overlay area code had not yet been determined according to December 2009 news articles, but NANPA, the North American Numbering Plan Administration which is the assignment body for new area codes, had internally assigned the new area code, but had neither announced it publicly at the time, nor had the Arkansas Public Service Commission announced the new code. On the evening of Tuesday, January 12, 2010, NANPA issued its Fourth Quarter 2009 Newsletter, which makes reference that 327 has been assigned as the new area code to overlay 870 in Arkansas.
However, the exhaust date has moved back to 2020 with little-used exchanges being released and numbers being recovered. As a result, the relief date likely will be many years in the future.
On June 22, 2012, following several meetings between the telephone industry and the Arkansas Public Service Commission, the Commission issued an update to suspend implementation of the 327 overlay to 870, until further notice.
On June 25, 2012, NANPA issued an updated Planning Letter 437, regarding the suspension of implementation of the overlay.