Here's a long post
Ireland's numbering uses 1-XXX for special services and non geographic numbers.
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Emergency Services (Fire/Ambulance/Police/Mountain Rescue/Coast Guard etc)
112 or 999 (universally available although 112 tends to override newer PABX systems and locks on mobile phones.. e.g. you can call 112 without a SIM card inserted) They're identical services. No local / individual numbers exsist for calling specific emergency services. 999 has been in operation for a LONG time and 112 is simply a mirrored service.
Calling 112 / 999 also causes a few other things to happen:
1) your line is traced (i.e. they reverse look-up the caller ID information getting your address/location)
2) you can't hang up on 999 or 112 until the operator hangs up. The exchange siezes the line.
3) All calls are recorded with the exception of specificlly sensitive calls passed through to the Police (for obvious reasons)
There is a specific Garda (Police) confidential freephone number if you need to report something annoymously.
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Assistance services:
10 - Operator (eircom)
114 - International Operator (eircom)
118XX (Directory Assistance & information services, provided by competing companies) Introduced about 4 years ago at this stage.
e.g. eircom's 11-8-11 (eleven eight eleven) provides directory assistance (either a computer read number, connection or number sent out by SMS to mobiles or SMS enabled fixed line phones), talking yellow pages, lotto results, traffic reports and a load of other stuff.
11-8-50 is the main compeditor.
190X (each phone company has its helpdesk number in this range)
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Phone services:
171 (voicemail almost every line in the country has at least one mailbox provided for free/almost free.)
141 - block caller ID (prefix)
142 - send caller ID (prefix)
1471 - reads back last missed call(s)
199X (line tests) e.g. 1993 reads the line number back.
Other services start with *
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Special Rate numbers:
TollFree 1-800 xxx xxx
LocalRate 18 90 xxx xxx (eighteen ninty)
LoCall 18 50 xxx xxx (eighteen fifty)
1891 xxx xxx (special internet rate)
1892 xxx xxx (internet at local rate)
1893 xxx xxx (internet flat rate)
15 30 xxx xxx (most widely used 1550 "fifteen fifty")
to
15 90 xxx xxx (premium rate varying right up to about 2.50 (or more) euro per min.
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ComReg (the regulator here) is looking into abolishing the traditional (0XX) xxx xxx dialling system and moving towards a "closed" system with no local numbers.
Right now we have a very structured geographical numbering system that is far too complicated given the size of the country and the fact that calls are increasingly charged at one national (local) rate.
The country is split into 01 (dublin) 02 (cork), 04 (Midlands and East except dublin), 05 (southeast), 06 (southwest) 07 (northwest) 09 (west)
With numbers structured as below:
(01) XXX XXXX (Dublin)
(0XX) XXX XXXX (Cork and any areas that are re-numbered)
(0XX) XXX XXX (6-digit)
(0XX) XXX XX (5-digit) (most rural areas)
(0X0X) XXX XX (5-digit) (some rural areas)
08X XXX XXXX (GSM Mobile phones) (numbers can start with 0/1 no local areas) e.g. 087 123 4567 is valid. (Mobile phone codes are simply becomming 08 XXXX XXXX with no signifigance to the numbering fairly soon. Right now 087 (vodafone) 086 (o2) 085 (meteor). Full portability of numbers within that range is on its way.
5-digit and 6-digit numbering areas are being merged making them (0XX) XXX XXXX.
The idea is to eventually harmonise it to 0XX XXX XXXX then simply remove the leading zero so we end up with XX XXX XXXX freeing up extra capacity by releasing 1 and 0 levels in local areas.
I presume the tightly structured geographical numbering is a throwback to the old Crossbar & stepXstep switching systems. I presume that with modern digital systems numbering is much more flexible.
Unlike the UK, letter codes were never used here. It's just a hierarchy of numbers..
e.g. (095) 41 222
0 (STD call) 9 (west) 5 (area within west) 4 (townland) 1222 (number which also may have geographical signifigance e.g. identify a concentrator etc)
Callers can dial 095 41 222 or just 41 222 (from within the area) it makes no difference to connection/charging both work interchangably.
Some phone companies even accept calls dialled as 00 353 XX XXX XXXX from within Ireland.
Another strange feature is that some bills now seem to identify the place you've called.
E.g. if I dial 00 44 208 the bill will Say "Outer London" or 01 "Dublin" 021 "Cork" 00331 "Paris" etc.. They used to just print the numbers.
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Strange setups:
(048 = Northern Ireland. If NI number was 028 9021 9021 you would dial 048 9021 9021 from the republic (or +44 28 9021 9021) needlessly complicated but I presume it date back to the old days where they needed to route calls over the boarder rather than into Britain and back to Northern Ireland. Dialling 048 or 004428 seems to make no difference, they're both treated as "national rate" calls.
Until the early 90's you simply dialled 03 followed by the British area code (including zero) to dial the UK
e.g. Manchester was just 03051. I think similar STD arangements exsisted for calling parts of the republic of ireland from the UK.
Did such arrangements exsist elsewhere in Europe ... e.g. Germany - Austria?
The international access code was 16 for everything else. 16 44 - just got an announcement telling you to dial 03 and the british number.
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