Ocean County Getting New Area Code

Due to an ever-increasing number of new phone numbers, a new area code is coming to South Jersey.

The new 640 area code will be added to the existing 609 region, including Atlantic, Cape May and parts of Ocean County. The new area code won't affect existing numbers, just being added as new phone lines and services are added.

Last year the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said the area would run out of numbers by late 2018, so the new area code 640 was introduced.

Strangely, the BPU is saying there will be a grace period starting in January where people will not have to dial all 10 numbers - I thought 10-number dialing had been a thing for, I don't know, twenty years? Or maybe it's just because I lived in the 732 area code, things changed a while ago.

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