Area code 721 is the telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

 area code of Sint Maarten within the North American Numbering Plan

North American Numbering Plan

The North American Numbering Plan is an integrated telephone numbering plan administered by Neustar which encompasses 24 countries and territories, including the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda, and 16 nations of the Caribbean...

 (telephone country code +1) since September 30, 2011. Before that time, Sint Maarten used the country code of +599, originally assigned to the now-dissolved Netherlands Antilles

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles , also referred to informally as the Dutch Antilles, was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao , in Leeward Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint...

 and still in use by Curaçao

Curaçao

Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 and the Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba). The northern French side of the island, known as Saint-Martin, is part of the French Antilles, with a separate country code +590.

There is a one-year permissive dialing period when either the old country code and the new area code can be used for dialing calls to Sint Maarten, with mandatory use of +1 721 afterwards.

History

On July 27, 2011, a new Planning Letter, #423, was issued by NeuStar NANPA, which indicates that the implementation of +1 721 for Sint Maarten had been granted, with implementation dates set for September 30, 2011 for permissive dialing and September 30, 2012 for mandatory dialing. Previous planning letters indicated other implementation dates, but those were superseded by the July 2011 planning letter.

Calling Procedure

Callers from outside of the NANP (country code +1) need to dial the international access code (often 00) followed by 1 721. Callers within most of the NANP dial 1 + 721 + the local seven-digit number, effective September 30, 2011. Previously, they had to dial 011 + 599 + the local seven-digit number beginning with "5".

Previous code

The remaining portions of the former Netherlands Antilles (Curacao and the Caribbean Netherlands) are retaining country code +599 for the present time. At this time, no known plans exist for these other islands to either join the NANP (country code +1) or adopt their own separate country codes.

See also

• List of NANP area codes
• Area codes in the Caribbean
  Area codes in the Caribbean
  From 1958 to about 1995, most of the British West Indies in the Caribbean Basin plus Bermuda, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico shared a single area code 809 in the North American Numbering Plan...
  
  
• Telephone numbers in Aruba
  Telephone numbers in Aruba
  Country Code: +297International Call Prefix: 00Telephone numbers in Aruba have country code 297. It is one of the few countries outside Africa with a country code starting with 2...
  
  
• Telephone numbers in Curaçao and the Caribbean Netherlands
• Telephone numbers in the Netherlands
  Telephone numbers in the Netherlands
  Country Code: +31International Call Prefix: 00Trunk Prefix: 0Telephone numbers in the Netherlands are sequences of usually 9 decimal digits after the trunk code used for identifying a destination telephone line in the Dutch telephone network...
  
  

External links

• North American Numbering Plan Administrator
• Introduction of NPA 721 (Sint Maarten)