ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112? 354
First time accepted submitter maijc writes "The International Telecommunication Union will determine the standard emergency phone numbers for new generations of mobile phones and other devices. AP reports that member states have agreed that either 911 or 112 should be designated as emergency phone numbers. 911 is currently used in North America, while 112 is standard across the EU and in many other countries worldwide."
Why not both? (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
Easy peasy, and no argument needed.
Of course, this is the U.N. we're talking about here, so OF COURSE there will be an argument. And it will no doubt break down fairly quickly into an old-resentment pissing contest between Europe and America, with both sides engaging in increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric and the end result being both sides telling the other to sod off. It will probably be considered a success if four additional numbers don't get proposed by countries who hate the West in general.
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Although from what I've learned from BBC television shows, the British use 999, so I doubt 911 & 112 is an exhaustive list. Still, why not have a dozen emergency phone numbers?
Re:Why not both? (Score:5, Informative)
The UK added 112 as an alternative many years ago, so while 999 is the popularly ingrained emergency number there would be no problem in the UK with a phone having 112 as the default emergency number.
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You can also use 112 in the UK.
But that only works if you hold your phone in your left hand...
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I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
^ This.
End of discussion.
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I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
AFAIK, phone switches already do that. I'm pretty sure I can dial 100 (emergency number for landlines over here) on my cell phone and ask to send an ambulance over. I think the old emergency number (900 - removed about 20 years ago) still works.
I wouldn't surprise me if 911 also works.
(Not tested - I prefer not to pay a fine for abusing those numbers.)
Never forget (Score:2)
the twelfth of January!
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Since 112 takes place in Europe, we should be remembering the 11th of February.
Indeed. Or the first of December :-)
Re:Why not both? (Score:5, Insightful)
My phone is doing just that already. When I key in either '112' or '911' it displays 'emergency call' (just tried; of course without making the actual call). Interestingly '999' (the actual emergency call number here) is not recognised. Probably because I'm using a UK-origin Android version on my phone.
Actually I wonder: why is there a number for emergency calls from mobiles? Why can't the mobile phone just tell the network "this is an emergency call, please put me through to the local emergency call centre". Then the phone can link one or more numbers to that. It is already so that if there is no SIM in the phone or you're out of reach of your network, as long as there is any network available you can use it for emergency calls.
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In my opinion having a one or two emergency numbers to call is the best so
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It might even be a foreign network if you're near a boarder.
If you're going to be connected to the emergency services of the wrong country anyway, I would say you have bigger problems than which number to dial.
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Of course, this is the U.N. we're talking about here, so OF COURSE there will be an argument.
Yes, and to any skilled politician the answer is blindingly obvious, compromise on 512, the average--except of course that leaves room to argue that it should be rounded down to 511 instead of up ;-)
(You think I'm kidding? Why do you think the packet length in ATM is 48 instead of 32 or 64? Yep, the average of two competing proposals over length...)
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I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
Easy peasy, and no argument needed.
>
Done in one.
My God, both a first post and a reasonable response. What is the world coming to?
But please /.'ers, don't let that stop you from arguing since the world ends in 9 days.
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I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
Sensible idea alert. If you actually dared to speak this out during one of those meetings, security would show up before you had finished your sentence, and escort you out of the door. How dare you shortcuts hours of "collegial" small talk about phone numbers by solving the problem with one small but brilliant idea. After all, the purpose of these meetings is to drag on and on and on, while outside the window the seasons go by (all 4 of them...), and to waste as much otherwise productive work time of highly
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I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services.
In Illinois they're rolling out 211, only not as an emergency number. 211 now links you to non-emergency government services like food stamps, etc.
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The Wiki for emergency lines per country has 124 hits on 112 in the list of supported emergency numbers, while 911 is only mentioned 54 times.
Quite a few nations in Africa and the Middle East have their own emergency numbers, but route both 112 and 911 to emergency services already.
Having said that, it seems that world-wide there is a larger population of people that use 112 than 911, so the obvious choice would be 112.
But all things being equal and the US being what they are, either 911 will be shoved down
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GSM already standardizes on 112 (even in North America - obviously you can also dial your local emergency number too, so 911 works here), and I don't believe the fat fingering issue you raise has been a problem at all.
Indeed, misdialing is only a minor problem with the UK 999
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Re:Why not both? (Score:5, Insightful)
For two, most switches use the first digit being a "1" to denote the beginning of a long distance call.
In the US perhaps, it's mostly 0 in Europe from what I've seen.
Going with '112' breaks a perfectly good standard in a country that at least has a standard phone number format.
Going with '911' breaks a perfectly good standard in multiple countries that already agreed on a standard phone number format.
Ah well, http://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com] right?
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No we don't do that. Long distance is usually another country so you use the international prefix in whatever country you are in. In the UK it'd be a 00 (of the + on your phone) don't know what it is elsewhere.
Re:Why not both? (Score:4, Informative)
most switches use the first digit being a "1" to denote the beginning of a long distance call.
Untrue. In most (but not all) of the world, the international dialing prefix is 00
And in the UK, the prefix 0 denotes a non-local call (i.e. outside your own STD code) whilst 1 usually denotes a service local to your specific telco (customer services, etc) although there are exceptions to this, such as the 118xxx numbers for directory enquiries. Numbers starting 2-9 are local (within your STD code) except for 999 (emergency services).
Going with '112' breaks a perfectly good standard in a country that at least has a standard phone number format.
The problem with this attitude is that mobile standards are international, and there are numerous countries with standard domestic number formats that are not the same as the US's. Unfortunately, the US attitude always seems to be to disagree with any international standardisation process rather than reach a compromise (I think anyone who has worked on the international telephone network protocols will agree with this - most of the ANSI protocols are different to the ITU recommendations for no reason other than to be different)
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The first digit being a "1" for long distance is only true in the US. When you come up with the phone system, of course you give your country the first country code.
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Re:Why not both? (Score:5, Insightful)
Phone networks originated in the U.S. If the international standard differs from and is incompatible with that of the U.S., you need to be asking why it differs. Not why the U.S. had the temerity to keep its existing system, instead of uprooting it and replacing it wholesale it to comply with a different standard.
That's not to say the standard is illegitimate - maybe the U.S. system was stupidly designed and not conducive to expansion across the globe, in which case it would be perfectly justified. But your assumption should be that the first system was the standard. And if a different standard was chosen elsewhere, you should be questioning that decision first. Not immediately criticizing the first system developed for not changing to adopt the new standard.
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Phone networks originated in the U.S. If the international standard differs from and is incompatible with that of the U.S., you need to be asking why it differs. Not why the U.S. had the temerity to keep its existing system, instead of uprooting it and replacing it wholesale it to comply with a different standard.
Your argument would hold water if the US was still using the original system that was in place before international standardisation. That's not the case - the original US phone system didn't use SS7, for example. As it stands, the ITU produce standards by collaberation with all stakeholders (the US included), the various national standards bodies, such as ETSI, ANSI, etc. then take those standards and modify them. ETSI, etc. tend to use those standards more or less as-is, with fairly minimal changes. AN
Re:Why not both? (Score:5, Insightful)
Using "1" as a trunk code in North America is almost meaningless these days. Digital switches route calls based on all the digits, they no longer have to be directed to find a trunk line before passing the rest of the digits through. I wouldn't be overly surprised if there are still a few local exchanges in the remote corners of America that still use electromechanical relays or really old ESS switches that need the "1" prefix for accessing a trunk line, but most networks can and will simply route any ten digit number to the correct destination without complaint.
"Dial '1' for long distance" these days is little more than a 'courtesy' reminder to people that "we will charge you extra money for this call because we've convinced Congress and the FCC that long distance calls still cost us extra money." In reality, those charges represent exactly the reasons that most people abandon their PSTN carriers and switch to digital phone carriers. I'd still be using the traditional wires (and paying the traditional phone company) if my local carrier hadn't stuck an unwanted "long distance access fee" on my bill after I discontinued long distance service.
Regarding "standards to reduce confusion", there are three standards for emergencies: 911, 112, and 000, and they all depend on where you came from and what you learned. If implementing them costs nothing, and there are no collisions in the network, supporting them all reduces confusion during emergencies - the one thing in an emergency situation that you don't want.
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There are no 12x area codes in the US, and switches are plenty smart enough to distinguish +1 yyy npa-nxx from 112. And furthermore, this is a mobile standard, and no-one dials US country code for long distance calls on mobile, its just yyy npa-nxx. You dont dial the 1 or +1 unless you are outside of NA and need to call back into the US (or just overly pedantic).
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While we really don't use 112- as a prefix in the US, I could see how someone might use 911- as a prefix elsewhere.
This is exactly how the arguments will break down. Someone will say something like "you provide 911 in Europe because everyone knows that's the emergency number, but we don't need to provide 112 for the same reason" and nothing can be agreed. GP's idea that both provide both is much better, that way it is neutral and there can be no harm in America routing 112 to the emergency services.
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Why can't it just stay the same as it is now? There's a reason for that, you know.
If they try to enforce 112, the US will tell them to get bent. +1 is the North American regional prefix, and the US uses it directly as a country prefix.
If they try to enforce 911, India has just as much right to do the same, since +9 is the mid-east regional prefix, and +91 is India's country prefix.
Why must the ITU screw everything up? They're like King Fecas. Everything they touch turns to crap.
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What's wrong with our current system, it seems to work just fine in the US so far and if it ain't broke, don't fix it as they say....?
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Just take the example of the party of daft Brit mountaniers that some years ago got stuck on a French mountain.
Because the UK had retained their obsolete 999 these dimwits did not know about the EU-wide implementation of 112 and they had to call friends at home to get the needed help.
Yes there is a need for a single number!
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+ sign is universal for International calls.
00 is not universal. A lot of countries use it, but by no means all.
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I'm just glad they're abandoning 999 used in the UK. Its far too easily miscalled on a locked phone.
Re:Prior use (Score:5, Funny)
The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
Re:Prior use (Score:5, Funny)
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The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
Thanks for that. Now I'm stuck with the song in my head and will have to watch the vid [youtube.com].
Re:Prior use (Score:5, Interesting)
the GSM spec contains a special call type 'emergency' which is meant to be triggered when you press that, or dial 112 or 999 (or presumably 911) so the digits really don't matter to the network. The idea was that those calls could kick someone else off the network if it was congested, for an emergency. I don't believe it was ever implemented though.
It was implemented. In the UK at least if you call an emergency number when you have a weak signal it will dramatically improve for the duration of the call as the cell tower reconfigures itself to use up to its maximum power and, as you say, drops any other call that was interfering with the call placed by your handset.
The towers are smart enough not to drop any calls or boost the power unless it will help.
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It was implemented. In the UK at least if you call an emergency number when you have a weak signal it will dramatically improve for the duration of the call as the cell tower reconfigures itself to use up to its maximum power and, as you say, drops any other call that was interfering with the call placed by your handset.
Link please! I think you're confusing this with the phone/sim* ability to use ANY available network (not only you provider's network) for an emergency call. This [wikipedia.org] can be used as a starting point for further documentation. *in some countries you can dial the emergency number even if you don't have a sim card in your phone.
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Re:Prior use (Score:4, Informative)
> the only time you'd start with a 1 is when dialing the NANP country code followed by an area code,
> or when dialing the emergency services.
Not quite. You forgot about 11-prefixed vertical service codes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code [wikipedia.org] ).
That said, AFAIK, nothing today actually USES 112, and no vertical service codes BEGIN with 112, so it could technically be used as an emergency number. Nevertheless, I see one of three things happening:
Scenario 1: ITU declares that 112 and 911 are emergency numbers everywhere, except in countries where it would screw up the phone system. The US yawns and says, "OK, we'll make 112 work here as an alias for 911".
Scenario 2: ITU declares that 112 must be the One and Only emergency number worldwide, and that countries must stop using 911 entirely. The US tells the ITU to go to hell. Canadians quietly do the same in less heated terms, but implement 112 as a fallback second emergency number anyway. The FCC plans to quietly do the same, then some halfwit elected official gets the stupid idea of making it the nationwide "patriot hotline" number to report suspicious un-American activity to DHS, and the whole thing goes down in flames.
Scenario 3: ITU declares that 112 is mandatory and 911 is optional. The US grudgingly agrees, asks carriers to implement it, and sets a compliance deadline of 2025.
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In fact... if you make 911 the emergency number in Spain we won't be able to dial to the 10% of fixed lines in Madrid in Spain.
91xxxxxxx is how all home lines in Madrid province begin with.
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I think this is probably an important rule that you cannot break in international numbering conventions (someone better informed could enlighten us). I say this because 10 or 15 years ago there was a huge numbering restructuration (due to increasing mobile numbers) to allocate a special numbering for mobiles (cellulars ?), and when it was done I remember several experts arguing to follow the international numbering rules to avoid this overlapping.
So if you have 911 for an emergency call, you won't be able t
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I think having three of the same digit is a problem with accidental dials... be it small children playing with a phone or pocket dialing a cell phone.
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I would vote for 90000.
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Also, do you have two reflective vests in the cabin of your vehicle? No? MASSIVE FINE. Thanks France.
The vests are for all of Europe. France are the officially-sanctioned one-time alcohol-detection penii, which you need to have in your car at all times, so that you can blow them in case you're wondering whether you're still sober enough to drive. Of course, there is only one company manufacturing these, they quadrupled the price since they became mandatory, and are now making much dough over this. I wonder whether someone within the French administration has been nicely rewarded by the company for this win
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Also, do you have two reflective vests in the cabin of your vehicle? No? MASSIVE FINE. Thanks France.
The vests are for all of Europe. France are the officially-sanctioned one-time alcohol-detection penii, which you need to have in your car at all times, so that you can blow them in case you're wondering whether you're still sober enough to drive. Of course, there is only one company manufacturing these, they quadrupled the price since they became mandatory, and are now making much dough over this. I wonder whether someone within the French administration has been nicely rewarded by the company for this windfall?
You shouldn't be wondering whether it happened or not, but who it happened to.
0118-999-881-999-119-7253 (Score:4, Funny)
What about the UK standard 0118-999-881-999-119-7253?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
Whats wrong with making it /really/ easy (Score:5, Funny)
3
why can't we standardise on that?
Re:Whats wrong with making it /really/ easy (Score:4, Informative)
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why can't we standardise on that?
Possibly because the last person who attempted to dial that particular emergency service wound up speaking to someone in another country before giving up, sending a e-mail, and then waiting while his coworkers slowly went insane from a head wound, foot injury, etc., and dropped unconscious. When he'd finally had enough of the waiting game, they busted into the room and bludgeoned him with the door. It's not exactly what I'd call a ringing endorsement. *cough*
Why not have both? (Score:2)
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Why not indeed?
The emergency number in the UK is 999 but all systems are configured to route 112 and 999 to the same place.
Well, the answer is obvious then. (Score:5, Funny)
> 911 is currently used in North America, while 112
> is standard across the EU and in many other
> countries worldwide.
911 then, of course. USA! USA! USA!
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USA = 872. Let's use that.
Clearly it should be 911 (Score:2)
That way no one would ever forget it.
112 (Score:5, Insightful)
112 isn't just standard across the EU and many other countries, it's part of the GSM standard. Outside of America getting its own way, there's no good reason to pick anything other than that, it's practically a worldwide standard already.
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Re:112 (Score:5, Funny)
So is metric, look how well America uses that :-\
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So is metric, look how well America uses that :-\
Americans use metric where it's useful, imperial where it's useful. It's entirely possible, some will be surprised to be well-versed in SI and still choose to use base-12 when building a staircase (without using a calculator).
It's impressive how Europeans who look down upon people who aren't at least bilingual also praise those who rigidly adhere to a single measurement system.
But, hey, I regularly use four spoken languages, two measurement systems, a couple
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The UK is much the same ; EU law forces
The UK began metrication way before joining the EU. Don't read the Daily Mail so much.
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I still don't understand why a bottle of milk is a half gallon, while a bottle of soda is 2L. Or why the engine in my car is 3.0L but the gas tank is 14 gallons.
Why not both? (Score:2)
There's a lot of inertia behind both of these numbers in their respective realms. Since all it takes is one non-informed person to call the wrong number and subsequently die, political pressure against standardizing on one number is going to exist.
That being said, why not make both numbers point to the same service planet-wide?
its a 5 second decision (Score:2)
Do both. Waste 1% of phone number space, which has basically no cost. Problem solved.
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I think you're slightly underestimating the amount of natural numbers.
GSM (Score:2)
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"Deeply divided" over what now? (Score:2)
Say what now? I'm pretty sure we have consensus here that that's Complete And Utter Bullshit. The only point of dispute there is which government(s) get the greater sway (because they all want authoritarian power over content and delivery for their own reasons); and the only dispute
Lets compromise (Score:3)
If it's International . . . (Score:2)
Why not 666?
The Mark of the Beast is easy to remember.
Yes, I _am_ an agent of Satan, but the duties are mostly ceremonial.
And why? (Score:2)
IT has been managing these issues for decades. This is not new, and neither is the concept of a phone being used by someone in another country and the potential confusion in emergency calls.
Landlines aren't portable, like cellphones, but their users are. Someone from Germany, for instance, in New York on business, may well have to make an emergency call - how did they ever figure it out in the old days?
And my phone (my last 2 actually) doesn't have a useful speed dial to 911. I have to unlock it, find the
GSM allows 5 emergency call codes (Score:4, Informative)
I think the mobile phones are the easy part, the hard part will be the 'other devices' which presumably will include landlines.
Isn't it obvious (Score:2)
The problem with finding an international standard (Score:2)
Generally you want the emergency number to be difficult to dial by accident. In the past, some national telecoms agencies made sure that no other numbers had the same first digit as the emergency number. This is being eroded now; in .nl, some idiot provider decided to make voicemail reachable via 1233 when emergency is 112.
555 (Score:2)
If it must be one(must it?) (Score:2)
it seems to me the 911 would be harder to accidentally dial.
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The easiest thing to do out of your pocket.
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And the UK - and therefore the Baby Jesus - uses 999 for that reason.
However, it's also easy to dial it accidentally, especially from your pocket, which is the argument against it.
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The fact that it is that easy to dial is probably the best reason not to use it. It needs to be easy to rememeber but not easy to accidentally dial.
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BEER
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Re:Reasons for either (Score:5, Informative)
I believe in Asia (or at least Korea), it's 119, so even those two aren't consistent internationally.
One argument for 112 is that it's easier to quickly dial if you're having an emergency moment and your finger-mobility is limited. An argument against would be that it's easier to dial by accident. I believe that 911/119 were chosen partially because those were the farthest spaced digits, to prevent accidental dialling.
I once had a co-worker who had a very simple phone number. Something like 555-545-4544 (or had only 2-3 unique digits). He amused us once by playing back a message that some random young child had left on his voicemail over the weekend, presumably after mashing keys on the phone. The interesting part was that it wasn't the first such voicemail he had, but it was generally from different random children.
So 112 may be easier to dial in an emergency, but it's also likely to have a higher number of mis-dials or 3-year-olds that just picked up a phone and mashed part of the number-pad.
The 911 goes back to the dial telephone days, when numbers could be dialled by line clicks. Nine is very unlikely to be mis-dialled, but took longer (9 or 10 pulses to send), and 1 was quick, so 911 was a good compromise. In the UK 999 would almost never be dialled by line noise but took longer.
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That would be 000, though.
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Maybe that's the reason we use 000 in Australia.
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You could dial with the cradle, which is why 111 was considered.
CC.
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at least in the netherlands, you still can. pulse dialing is still supported.
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Both were in use (Score:2)
DTMF (Touch Tone) dialing was introduced in 1963 but did not become commonplace until the 1970s. 9-1-1 was picked as the emergency number in 1968. It's worth noting that "1" and "9" are far from each other on both DTFM keypads and rotary dials, so the same logic (avoiding accidental calls) applies to both systems.
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It's the nature of large bureaucracies to make decisions in order to be seen as doing something. It doesn't matter if the something actually makes sense or not.
In the ITU's case, they've suffered some significant losses recently with "4G" being co-opted to mean "3G" by phone carriers and by their internet regulatory plan being shot down by the US. So they really need to do something here if only to feel like they're not totally impotent (like most of the UN is).
4G LTE == 4G Lite (Score:2)
In the ITU's case, they've suffered some significant losses recently with "4G" being co-opted to mean "3G" by phone carriers
I thought carriers were subconsciously encouraging their customers to be honest by referring to their deployment of Long Term Evolution as "4G Lite".
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And why does the EU use 112? Because we use 911. Seemed like the perfect reason to them.
112 is used because 111 could be dialed by accident (hanging up a few times) on old pulse dial phones.