A new area code is coming to the Hudson Valley. The supply of 845 telephone numbers will be exhausted by 2023, prompting the approval for new three-digit start for calls.

When area codes were first created in the 1950s, they had particular significance on a telephone dial. Numbers corresponded to two-letter identifiers, such as AB (22) for Aberdeen.

The city, whose dialling code is 020, currently has 30 million phone numbers allocated across the existing (020)3, 7 and 8 ranges, Ofcom said.