Is the area code prefix irrelevant?

My cell still has my area code so must still route it here I’d think. Right?

Yes, as @KNOWITALL has said, the area code is part of routing the call to the phone.

While it is true that the area code is still determined geographically, but given the mobility of users as well as portability of numbers, in many cases a particular area code does not necessarily indicate the true origin of the call. Many plans have unlimited long distance, but in some of the plans that still have limited long distance minutes, or that still charge for long distance calls, a caller might be calling someone in the next room and still pay long distance charges for the call.

My point exactly @Yetanotheruser Looking back on my phone log for the past two days I have received calls from 979, 651, 856, 512, 817, 214, 254, 903, 936, 256 and 957 yet all these calls came from my town.

So, they’re not exactly irrelevant, because they still are generated geographically. With free roaming, however, it still doesn’t help to determine the origin of the call.

I can see the need for three more digits to increase the available numbers, it is just that they no longer represent a geographic location.

And does anyone know if the second set of three numbers ”(xxx) ???-xxxx” did they ever serve a specific purpose such as delineating where a telephone was within the given area code?

Yes, those three numbers designated a town, city or general area. Where I grew up, we knew that 592 was our town. Other numbers meant other towns. You also had to know what towns or cities were toll calls instead of local calls.

Before my time, if you were calling within your own 3 digit city code, you only had to dial the last four digits. I’m not sure when that changed, but I do recall my sisters talking about it.

The area codes originally referred to geographical locations, as discussed above. The exchange originally referred to a local region. I remember when I could tell from the number in the exchange the approximate geographical location within a town. For example:

@tedibear, I know what you’re talking about. In the town where I grew up, our phone number, through the 1950’s, was something like Mytown 1234 (where “Mytown” is the town name). In order to place a local call, we would simply dial the four numbers (indicated by the x’s). However, to place a call to many of the neighboring towns, we had to place the call through an operator, with toll charges. Somewhere around 1960 (maybe a year or two earlier) the town name was dropped and an exchange name was used. The first two letters of the exchange name were intended to be a mnemonic for the first two numbers of the exchange. For example, the famous BUtterfield 8 exchange of movie fame would be dialed 288, with the last four digits of the number. This would allow numbers in a certain region to call using the seven digit number. Shortly afterward, the “North American Numbering Plan”: standardized Area Codes, giving each subscriber a unique 10-digit number. This plan, with a updates for number availability, is what is used today to assign numbers.