PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – The Florida Keys are getting another area code.
Beginning in June, the 786 area code will be added to the Keys.
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Last month, mandatory 10-digit dialing was implemented in the Keys, meaning that anyone calling to or from the southernmost county in Florida must enter both the area code and telephone number.
Mandatory 10-digit dialing has come to the Keys out of necessity.
"They're running out of 305 telephone numbers," Florida Public Service Commission spokeswoman Cynthia Muir told Local10.com.
Phone numbers in Florida and throughout the United States are governed by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator. It is then up to state regulatory commissions to implement them.
The NANPA originally estimated that the 305 area code in the Keys would be exhausted in 2001, but the PSC's number conservation measures delayed the need for another Keys area code for 14 years.
In May 2014, however, the NANPA estimated that all the numbers in the Keys would be exhausted by the second quarter of 2015, prompting the inevitable need for the change.
"It's the price of progress," Muir said.
Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties at one time all had the 305 area code, but Broward County inherited its own area code -- 954 -- in 1995. The 754 area code was added later.
The 305 area code has been used in Miami-Dade County and the Keys for years, but the 786 area code was created for new numbers in Miami-Dade County in 1998, becoming Florida's first overlay area code.
Newcomers to the Keys might not be getting the coveted 305 area code anymore, but there is a bright side: 786 on the keypad spells "sun."