That 625 telephone prefix that has been popping up on the Plateau is not a typographical error – it has been assigned to the area.

Rebecca Beaton with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission said it’s not unusual with today’s competition to have different prefix surface. The 625 prefix doesn’t mean the area’s 802 or 825 prefixes have been exhausted. It most likely means there’s a new carrier in town and it was given a different lot of numbers.

The North American Numbering Plan Administrator, which is the Federal Communications Commission, assigns batches of numbers. Area codes are handled the same way.

“More competitors means more options,” Beaton said.