9-1-1

9-1-1 (nine-one-one or nine-eleven) is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is one of eight N11 codes.

Problems

There are some problems with the assignment of the number 9-1-1. In particular, it can cause some dialing-pattern problems in hotels and businesses. Some hotels, for example, have been known to require dialling "91+" to make an outside call. This leads to calls that look like 91+1+301+555+2368. Since that's a valid number, which starts with 911, and is not a call to an emergency service, a timeout becomes necessary on actual calls to 911. Such prefixes are strongly discouraged by telephone companies. This is also part of the reason why no area codes start with a "1": the slightly less troublesome "outside line" prefix of "9+" would then cause the same problem: "9+114+555+2368", for example. Another possible problem is that the international phone code for India is "91", and sometimes calls meant for India end up at the local emergency dispatch office.

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And in Germany, the domestic area code "0911" is reserved for the town of Nürnberg (Nuremberg) - in European countries with an open telephone numbering plan, like Germany, all area codes begin with a "0" prefix.

Related Topics:
Germany - 0911 - Telephone numbering plan

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The number's close association with emergencies has led to "911" being used as shorthand for "emergency" in text messages sent to pagers and mobile phones—however, this is often used to tag situations which do not have the life-safety implications that an actual call to 911 implies.

Related Topics:
Text messages - Pager

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Emergency numbers outside the U.S. & Canada

Additionally, 9-1-1 is used so pervasively in U.S. and Canadian media and safety education that other countries have sometimes had difficulty in educating children not to dial 9-1-1 for help at all. Even many American tourists do not know that 9-1-1 is not an emergency number outside the U.S. and Canada, and sometimes face problems when they are abroad.

Related Topics:
Media - Safety - Education

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The most common emergency number outside the U.S. and Canada is 1-1-2. The next most common is 9-9-9. Germany, for example, also use 1-1-0 for police and 1-1-2 for fire & ambulance.

Related Topics:
1-1-2 - 9-9-9 - 1-1-0

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In 1991, the European Union established 1-1-2 as the universal emergency number for all its member states. In most E.U. countries, 1-1-2 is already effective and can be called toll-free from any telephone or any cellphone. The GSM mobile phone standard designates 1-1-2 as an emergency number, so it will work on such systems even in the U.S. In the UK, the number is 9-9-9 with 1-1-2 working in parallel.

Related Topics:
European Union - 1-1-2 - GSM - UK - 9-9-9

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A list of Emergency telephone numbers around the world can be found here.

Related Topics:
Emergency telephone numbers - Here

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