When the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) organized the telephone networks of North American with a universal
telephone numbering plan in 1947, Pennsylvania was divided into four numbering plan areas, identified by area codes
215,
412,
717, and
814, respectively. Area code 717 was assigned to the eastern half of Pennsylvania, but excluding the
Delaware and
Lehigh Valleys. Area code 570 was created when the numbering plan area 717 was divided on December 5, 1998. It was the first new Pennsylvania area code created outside
Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh since the implementation of the area code system. In 2009,
North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA) projections indicated that 570 would exhaust its central office prefixes in the third quarter of 2011. The
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) considered an
overlay complex and three options of dividing the area. Two of the splits would have left Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, the two largest cities with the existing area code. On July 15, 2010, the PUC decided that the new area code, 272, would be implemented as an overlay. The area code entered service on October 21, 2013, after
ten-digit dialing had become mandatory in northeastern Pennsylvania on September 21, 2013. ==Service area==