CDER DATA STANDARDS MANUAL

FDA Data Element Number. None.

CDER Data Element Number. C-GEN-10202

Data Element Name. Telephone Area Code.

Description. This standard provides format specifications for representing the telephone area code for the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean nations of Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands.

Source. Bell Atlantic directory.

Relationship. See Telephone Number, Format 1.

FDA Specifications. None.

CDER Specifications. Telephone Area Code is represented by numeric text of three characters. There shall be no punctuation (including no parentheses surrounding the code).

FDA Approved Date.

CDER Approved Date. January 10, 1995.

FDA Revised Date.

CDER Revised Date.

Data Values. See the current telephone book listing of area codes for values. Actual values have not been presented in this standard because area code geographic boundaries are defined by the telephone systems according to each city, and sometimes further defined by unnamed sections within each city. In addition, there are some area codes that cover two countries plus a territory (e.g., 809 for all Caribbean nations and Puerto Rico); Oracle tables cannot store more than one code for each country. Finally, area codes frequently split with only regional notification. These idiosyncrasies would make the actual maintenance of a verifiable area code list extremely tedious and time consuming.

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