NANPA

NANPA stands for North American Numbering Plan Administration. It is the organization responsible for administering the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) numbering resources. The NANP covers the United States, Canada, and more than a dozen Caribbean and Atlantic jurisdictions that participate in the plan. The NANPA's primary role is to allocate and manage telephone numbers and related resources, including area codes (NPA) and central office codes (NXX), and to oversee the policies and procedures that govern their use.

The administration operates under a contract with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and works with regulators from NANP-participating countries to ensure consistent numbering rules, prevent waste and exhaustion of numbers, and support number portability and emergency services. The NANPA maintains centralized databases containing information about number assignments, routing, and utilization. It also conducts forecasting of number resource needs, maintains the NRUF, and plans for area code relief when an area runs out of numbers.

In practice, telecommunications carriers request number blocks from NANPA to assign to customers, subject to rate centers, service requirements, and regulatory policies. The NANPA also manages special-purpose numbers such as toll-free and non-geographic numbers in the NANP. The office periodically reviews and updates numbering policies to accommodate new technologies and services.