How To Find Out Where Someone Lives by Their Phone Number
Well you really can’t find out where someone lives exactly, only the phone company can tell you that and that information is confidential. However you can find which town someone lives in using the NPA/NXX database. The North America Numbering Plan was first introduced in 1947 and adopted by AT&T in 1951. The NANP was made to simplify and speed up long distance calls or calls that needed to leave the Central Office they originated from. That is where ‘Mabel’ would get on and you would ask to connect to Bayside-0213, Bayside was the central office or ‘229’ b=2 a=2 y=9 or you could ask for 229-0123. The letters on the phone are there for a reason and that was when the NANP came into existence.
The NANP defined how areas would be numbered as well, areas being large area or Local Area Transport Areas (LATA). All calls in the area where charged at a predefined rate and in the 80’s that changed and where split into smaller area. However the Area Code or Numbering Plan Area are the same. So the Area Code / NPA for Pittsburgh is 412 this defines the Numbering Plan Area. Inside of the NPA there are several Exchanges or Numbering Plan Exchanges these are defined as NXX. This is the BAY/229 in Bayside. The last 4 digits of a phone number are the subscriber line and again that is private data.
So looking at a number like 412-229-0123 you can tell that it is in 412 or Pittsburgh. Inside of Pittsburgh the Exchange area or NXX is 229 or Bayside and the Subscriber is 0123. Well wouldn’t it be perfect if all exchanges matched like 229 is Bayside? Well 224 is also Bayside and that doesn’t work on a phone with the number encoding. Remember the NANP was introduced in 1947 and everyone owns a phone, so area were numbered outside of the first three letters encoded to the digits on a phone. You don’t call ‘Mabel’ anymore. There is a database published that Long Distance providers subscribe to for call routing. You can find pretty up to date version that are freely searchable on the Internet, just Google ‘npa nxx’ and you will find one. You can then locate a person down to the city they live in.
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