It will take about an extra 1.8 seconds to call a number with 10-digit dialing. (Kevin Yarr/CBC)

P.E.I. and Nova Scotia are getting a second area code, and with that will come the need to dial 10 digits in those two provinces instead of seven when making a local call.

Almost all the numbers in the 902 area code are taken, which will require a new area code and more numbers punched when you make a phone call, probably starting in 2014. Many Canadians have been dealing with 10-digit dialing for more than a decade.

"Everybody across Canada already, 90 per cent of the population, already dials ten digits," said Glenn Pilley, director of the Canadian Numbering Administrator, which advises the CRTC on area codes.

Ten-digit dialing was first introduced in Toronto and Vancouver in 2001. Montreal picked it up in 2006. It spread across British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta in 2008.

Mobile devices are the big culprit when it comes to gobbling up phone numbers. A single device can have as many as five phone numbers associated with it for performing different operations.

Pilley said it takes a person roughly 1.8 seconds to dial the extra three digits.