I remember back in the day when it was a long distance call to call LaPine or Redmond from Bend. You could call Sunriver, but you couldn’t call LaPine. When I lived in Bend growing up, I knew if the phone number didn’t start with 38-something (382, 385, 388, 389, and then 383 came along later) or 593, it was a long-distance call. Now that they’ve smoothed things out and deregulated things a bit, Sunriver, Redmond, LaPine, Madras, Prineville, Sisters, Culver, Gilchrist, and Camp Sherman and areas who use phone prefixes from those areas are all local phone calls from Bend. While this is a nice thing, with the area’s explosive growth and the advent of cell phones has made it stupidly confusing to keep track of local prefixes. The local phone books used to have a page for local calling with all the prefixes, but I couldn’t find it in the latest yellow page. And I couldn’t find a master list online publicly anywhere, but had a list that a local company gave me access to behind a password protected interface (I work for a client of theirs). So here you go, this is (as far as I know) all the phone prefixes (area code 541) that you can call from Bend without incurring long-distance fees. I’ll update these if anybody has any additions, but I’m mostly documenting this here for my own reference so I don’t have to log into a password-protected interface to get it.
And if there is an easy way to find this information online that I totally missed, be sure to let me know. But basically I’m creating this as a public service so that folks new to the area know what’s long distance and what’s not.
Prefixes that are Local Phone Calls From Bend and The Cities They’re In (all are area code 541, updated 10/27/09):
233 (Prineville)
241 (Bend)
279 (Madras)
280 (Bend)
306 (Bend)
309 (Bend)
312 (Bend)
316 (Redmond)
317 (Bend)
318 (Bend)
322 (Bend)
323 (Bend)
325 (Madras)
330 (Bend)
350 (Bend)
355 (Bend)
362 (Prineville)
382 (Bend)
383 (Bend)
385 (Bend)
388 (Bend)
389 (Bend)
390 (Bend)
408 (Bend)
410 (Bend)
416 (Prineville)
419 (Bend)
420 (Bend)
433 (Gilchrist)
447 (Prineville)
460 (Madras)
475 (Madras)
480 (Bend)
504 (Redmond)
508 (Bend)
516 (Redmond)
526 (Redmond)
536 (Lapine)
546 (Culver)
548 (Redmond)
549 (Sisters)
550 (Bend)
553 (Madras)
585 (Bend)
588 (Sisters)
593 (Bend)
595 (Black Butte)
598 (Bend)
604 (Redmond)
610 (Bend)
617 (Bend)
629 (Bend)
633 (Bend)
639 (Bend)
647 (Bend)
678 (Bend)
693 (Bend)
706 (Bend)
719 (Sisters)
728 (Bend)
749 (Bend)
771 (Bend)
777 (Madras)
788 (Bend)
803 (Culver)
815 (Bend)
848 (Bend)
876 (Lapine)
923 (Redmond)
931 (Gilchrist)
948 (Bend)
977 (Bend)
Comments
What a horrible mess!
I never really understood how Americans distinguish local numbers from cell phone numbers. Can you at all — before actually dialing?
In most other countries, the number has a different prefix. For example, The Netherlands carries a 06 prefix, just like a 1-800 (0800 here) or 1-900 (0900 here) prefix.
Yeah, it is ugly. The above list does include local cell phone numbers as well, complicating things further.
I can relate. I was aborned and was but a neat thing in Silverton, in the 873 prefix. Back thien, not only was a phone call four miles down the road to Mount Angel a long distance call, but any phone in the 873 exchange could be dialled by leaving the 87 off (that is, you could get 873-1234 by dialling 31234).
Of course, that may have more to do with the greater Silverton area being served by a completely different phone company (then it was Continental Telephone, later GTE and nowaday Verizon) than anything else. Still, it was charming.
At the time Salem was also a LD call from Silverton, and they had a comparatively numerous prefix range: 362, 363, 364 and 580, 581, and 585.
Now, everything has gone straight to you-know-where. I still dispise the 971 overlay about as much as the fact that, in our neck of the woods, people still think that the area code is optional.
Yeah, I remember the days where you could do the no-prefix calling in Sunriver — just dialing the last four digits would work just fine. That was a LONG time ago.
I have a friend in Medford in the same area code as I am (541), but I have to dial a 1 before calling her. How do you know when to dial 1 and when not to? This system is dain bramaged.
… and to make things even more “special” – it’s actually a long-distance call from La Pine to Redmond. Never mind any prefixes.
My vet is in Redmond, so I have to call him on my cell as I have dropped any long-distance plan on my home phone carrier eons ago … Fun, eh?
The Europeans are lightyears ahead of us in everything phone-related, right down to a sane organization of prefixes. Not to mention pay-as-you-use cell service.
Jake, I’m right there with you. I remember a time when there were on three prefixes. My Grandparents remember when there was one or two. Even though I’m living in Eugene now, it’s wierd dialing a number for Bend that starts with 977…etc.
I must be as old as Jason’t grandparents, because back in 1985, I remember just 388 and 389. Then along came 382. I do find I carry a phone prefix prejudice… I think less of Bend phone prefixes that do not start with 38….
I recall Redmond before 923 came out, just the 548’s 🙂
Seriously though, the easiest way to keep this list, for your reference, is to switch landline service from Qwest to anyone else (vonage, packet8, use your imagination) and then the list gets shorter:
local numbers:
000 000 0000 – 999 999 9999
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