Which carrier owns 262 numbers?
47 holders appear in the 634 number blocks assigned in 262 of the 786 possible. AT&T holds the largest named share at 39.0%, ahead of T-Mobile at 9.0%. A further 12.1% sits with holders outside the national carriers, counted together: competitive local exchange carriers, VoIP providers and the resellers behind app-based numbers. These are blocks allocated by NANPA, not customers. Number portability means a block registered to one carrier can be full of numbers now served by another, so the share describes the registry, not the market. The top 19 holders shown account for 100.1% of assigned blocks. Blocks are allocated to rate centers; the largest in 262 are WAUKESHA (74), MILWAUKZN2 (67) and RACINE (53).
Share of assigned number blocks
Of the 634 blocks assigned in 262 out of 786 possible; the 19 holders shown cover 100.1% of them. Each block is 10,000 consecutive numbers. Bars are scaled to the largest holder, not to 100%.
Why this is not “who your caller uses”
Number portability means a subscriber keeps their number when they change carrier, while the block stays registered to whoever originally received it. In a code that has been in service for decades, a large share of numbers are served by a carrier other than the registered holder. The table above is an accurate picture of the numbering registry and a poor proxy for market share.
Where the blocks sit
Blocks are allocated to rate centers – the billing geography, not the carrier. NANPA truncates their names to ten characters, and in large metros they are telephone zones rather than places, so we leave them unchanged rather than guessing. Showing the largest 5 of 60.
Frequently asked
Which carrier owns 262 numbers?
No single one. The largest named holder of number blocks is AT&T with 39.0%, across 47 holders in total. And ownership of a block is not the same as who serves a given number: people keep their numbers when they switch carriers.
Can I tell someone's carrier from a 262 number?
Not from the area code, and not reliably from the first six digits either. Portability has been in place for two decades, so the block's registered holder is often not the current carrier. A number-level lookup is the only way, and that is what the tool on the area code page does.
What does “Other CLEC / VoIP” mean here?
It is not a company. It is every holder outside the national carriers added together – competitive local exchange carriers, VoIP providers and the wholesalers behind app-based and business numbers. In many codes it is the largest line in the table, which is itself the finding: numbering has moved away from the big carriers.
How many carriers have numbers in 262?
47 appear as block holders in the current NANPA records, and blocks are spread over 60 rate centers.
Sources
- NANPA – NPA Database (npa_report.csv), file date 11/01/2026, retrieved Nov 1, 2026
- NANPA – CO Code Assignment Records, All States (utilized), file updated 11/01/2026, retrieved Nov 1, 2026
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