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The end of the last line reads: "..and then hand over to the other force when they arrive.yh man goole". It's the "yh man goole" part that confuses me. I'm assuming it's not meant to be there, but I thought I'd check here first, before just editing it. ZellDenver ( talk) 00:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Quote from "History": "A valid SIM card is required to make a 999/112 emergency call in the UK.[7][8]" This is wholey inaccurate, it is required that all mobile phones be able to dail: 999, 112 & 911. I belive that there may be some other numbers in there too. ZellDenver ( talk) 00:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
The reference links 1 and 2 no longer link to the story's there meant to and need to be updated or removed if untrue.
Mountain and cave rescue? That's pretty specific types of need. Are there many people getting trapped in caves and mountains in Europe that we don't know about? Anglachel 21:01, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that such an emergency service exists in the UK? When it comes to dealing with (or planning and practicing for) any incident of a radiological or nuclear nature, the approach AFAIK is almost always one where the 3 primary services attend (the fire brigade dispatching the relative NBC special units) backed-up by specialists like the internal emergency services of the nuclear industry, MoD, NRPB, etc. -- Myfanwy 18:44, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There is the Civil Nuclear Constabulary formerly the UKAEA Constabulary. They are specifically for the protection of nuclear materials and civil nuclear sites. They as far as I know are the UK's only fully armed police constabulary. Info from CNC Website Roblynas 01:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I assume this is written 9-9-9 here to fit in with the way 9-1-1 and so on are written, but it's virtually never written with the dashes in this country - we just write 999. 81.158.205.255 6 July 2005 04:28 (UTC)
You tend to hear emergency service people referring to them as "Treble Nine" calls. -- jmb 01:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Then shouldn't 1-1-2 be moved to 112 (emergency telephone number) too? I've never seen that number written as 112 in Europe, only as 1-1-2. ( Stefan2 18:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC))
It's worth mentioning you don't need to know what service you require before dialling 999, the operator will make a judgement for you on the basis of what you're screaming. You can always ask them what is available/describe the situation.
Would it be worth including information here giving details of the procedure/etc. involved in dialling 999 (standard call) so people know what to expect - I've worked in the emergency services for a while & every little bit of info that gets out there is a benefit to our response. Unfortunately the government currently doesn't seem interested in paying for this. For an example see... http://www.diretribe.com/stuff/guide-to-having-an-emergency/ Thanks.
The major 999 providers (BT and C&W - who together deal with 99% of calls) will route calls to the following Emergency Services only: Police, Fire, Ambulance and Coastguard. Other services are accessed via those four services. In virtually all cases BT and C&W will connect the call to the service which is requested. They make no judgement call normally, and untill very recently there was no definition of what an emergency was. That definition is not used by BT and C&W. The purpose of BT and C&W is only to pass the call on as soon as possible, which normally means doing what the caller asks for. If multiple services are needed (for example following an accident) the service mentioned first will normally recieve the call. The service spoken to will liase with the other services. sb 13:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The 999 number did not originate during the Blitz as its diamond jubilee was celebrated in 1997. The first 999 call was by Mrs Stanley Beard in 1937. See: http://www.sigtel.com/tel_hist_999.html Also see the "New Shell Book of Firsts" under 1937.
I was led to believe that one of the reasons the numbers "999" where chosen is that they could be dialled in the dark as "9" was the last number on the dial and nearest the stop.
Should we mention the BBC TV program 999? Also, does anyone know the official name? I've seen things like 999 Lifesavers, but I haven't been able to find anything definitive. -- Scott Wilson 22:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Good to see our politicians have one. "In an emergency, dial 999. To have the police visit your home for non-emergencies, use 101". LMAO... -- User24 21:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I have read in the past that priority for "112" calls was written into the specification of GSM. Opinions seem to vary about whether "999" gets the same priority. Does anyone have a definitive answer? -- jmb 17:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
It is an all-service number, meaning that it should be called in any situations where state-run emergency services are needed. The three main and best-known services are fire & rescue services, police and paramedics.
Should "Paramedics" be "Ambulance"? That's what I've always called it. Which service do you require? Microchip08 15:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to sign...
Well you wouldn't say 'police constable' or 'police community support officer' when you ring for the police or 'fire command officer' or 'fire watch officer' when you ask for the fire service to come would you? It's the same thing really, paramedic is a rank just like an EMT and you can't specify which one you get, you just get whats available! So IMO asking for AMBULANCE is the correct procedure because you are asking for the ambulance service. Well thats my opinion anyway! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.78.139 ( talk) 20:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I believe there was another reason for 999 being chosen other than the one in the artice (dial design) or listed above.
Outside London, in the pre- Subscriber trunk dialling (STD) days, exchanges were broken up heirarchically into "town" mian exchanges and "village" sub-exchanges. Only main exchanges had operators on duty. Village exchanges were given dialling codes typically 81, 82 etc. To get from a village to a town you always dialled 9.
When they invented STD, and the STD code for the town was 0543, that for villageA was 054381 etc.
Thus the only number that would work in both towns and villages was 999. The "real" number was town 99. If you were in the town, 99 would work, if you were in the village, you needed to dial 9 99. The number was published as 999 for consistency.
All the above is from memory, can anybody provde a citation? TiffaF 12:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The routing codes outlined above were pretty much the norm, although there were many local variations. Due to numbering issues, some towns used 5x or 7x codes to reach the outlying village exchanges instead of or as well as 8x, for example, and in some cases there would be 3-digit routing codes, such as 851, 852, etc.
In the most basic system where village A and village B each had trunks only to their parent exchange in town, then all calls from one village to another would be dialed via the town: 981, 982, etc. Sometimes two outlying dependent exchanges would be close enough and have sufficient telephone traffic to justify direct trunks between them, in which case other codes would be assigned. So subscribers in village A might then be told to dial 6 234 to reach village B number 234, while calls to everywhere else would still start with a 9 to reach the parent exchange.
If you wish to cite a reference, Atkinson's "Telephony" Volume 2 (Pitman, 1950) is a standard reference book from the old days and covers a lot of this.
Into the STD days, calls to adjoining STD code areas were (in most cases) still counted as local and were dialed with other local routing codes instead of the STD code. These codes to reach adjacent STD areas were typically 91, 92, 93, etc.
These ran alongside the use of 9 in small exchanges to reach the parent, so local calls from or to a dependent exchange in an adjacent area could string these together, e.g. if the town in the above example used 91 to reach the next large town, then somebody in village B would dial 991 for calls to that other town. You could even end up with a call from a dependent in one exchange to a dependent in another having a local dialing code something like 99182 -- 9 to reach YOUR parent, 91 to connect to the main exchange in the adjoining area, then 82 to reach an outlying exchange from that town.
So as this relates to 999, yes, another factor in the first digit being 9 was that at many outlying rural exchanges 9 already routed to the parent exchange, and thus allowed 999 service to be provisioned for both the main town and all its dependents without any major changes having to be made at those dependents.
The trunking on the selectors did indeed also mean that in many towns you could reach the operator with just 99, although that was never the case in London.
London used a director system, where the first three digits dialed were stored in a register and then translated into the digits needed to operate the switches to route the call. The only exception was a special arrangement so that you could reach a regular operator by dialing just 0. So in London (and the other director areas: Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester), it was always necessary to dial 999 in full. PBC1966 ( talk) 16:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It's worth mentioning that the article as far as UK access to the European 112 convention is incorrect. Despite the *GSM* standard requiring sim-less connection to the emergency services, this will not work in the UK (try it!). BT charges mobile operators for each 999 call handled - although this cost is not passed on to the caller - and therefore sim-less phones will not establish a connection as no network wants to absorb that cost for a non-subscriber. There is also the issue of not being able to ring back a sim-less phone as it has no telephone number, which would break EISEC and the verbal "escort and announce" backup method of call delivery.
Next time you find yourself with no service on your subscribed network, yet can see other providers' signals, and have your sim card in, try and get a 999/112 call to connect. You'll receive "Attempting emergency call.... call failed." This unfortunately bit me in the bottom recently where I came across the scene of an RTC and had to drive three-quarters of a mile back down the road to the public phone box to contact the emergency services. The provision of free emergency calls without a sim card or no signal on your subscribed network is at the discretion of the networks - And currently, no UK network allows this. 82.69.207.193 18:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
As the original poster stated, GSM mobile phones on UK networks will not make emergency calls on other networks or without a SIM card. Claims that they will are simply urban myth, and it's very easy to verify that this fails. Mauls ( talk) 13:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
This might be useful [ 999 celebrates its 70th birthday]. I found it looking for the story about 111 (which I'd heard 10 years ago working for BT), there's probably other things in there that can be added. Bazzargh ( talk) 01:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It works in Ireland. I just tested it. -- Evertype· ✆ 19:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have checked this with Comreg (The Irish Telecommunications Regulator which allocates numbers) and 911 is not officially part of the Irish numbering scheme and could form the first 3 digits of a normal local phone number. However, some mobile phones may automatically connect calls dialed as 911 or 999 to the GSM emergency service i.e. 112. However, this is *not* a feature of the telephone network or the Irish numbering plan. The only emergency numbers that work in Ireland are 112 and 999 any connection to 911 is being carried out by a mobile handset's internal software or a private network. 911 will *not* work on any Irish public network.
My old Nokia mobile used to rind the emergency services when you dialled 08 (which it used to do, fairly frequently, on its own accord). Does anyone know if this is an official number? KillerKat ( talk) 17:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Are there any BT, C&W etc. operators out there? If so, i'd like to begin by saying that I have always been very impressed with your professionalism and reliability. I have never once come across a bad operator and I really think that that say's something.
Could you enlighten me as to how you recieve calls and your procedures for passing them on to the relevant service and if there is much difference between passing them to each service.. i.e. different protocols/expectations for Ambo, Fire and Police? Also what happens if you cannot get through to a force and have to keep the caller on the line for 2 minutes, or longer... how does that feel... what do you do?
many thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.208.244.188 ( talk) 23:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm a 999 Operator with BT in Bangor, Wales and some of details in the article are incorrect.
HDC7777 ( talk) 16:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
New article = 999 (Emergency telephone number UK). Jamesyboy2468 ( talk) 18:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
OK, maybe it might cause confusion in Ireland / Eire, but I cannot say I have ever seen or heard of a local _UK_ exchange (usually a 3 digit #, or 4 in London now) that starts with a 9. Never seen a number written down that uses one, never seen one described as the code for a particular area. I would expect they're deliberately withheld, the same as those which start 0 and 1, to prevent confusion if nothing else - even if it means only 70% of the potential number space is available rather than 80%, and you lose a good few exchange mnemonics (a lot of them, at least in years past, seem to map as closely as possible to the first three letters being "spelt out" on the dial / number pad, and 9 carries WXYZ...). There's also every possibility that non-emergency 9** numbers get used as internal service codes for phone engineers etc. Nice and convenient. Or possibly just anything starting "9" gets patched through, in case some poor unfortunate started dialling 999 and got interrupted in keypad-mashing fashion.
Super-local STD codes, sure... at least, pre "phoneday". My grandparents' number (several counties away) used to start (0)927 (with a 6-digit local exchange + subscriber number, vs our 7-digit one hidden behind (0)21), and now it's (0)1927 (matching our (0)121). But those are long distance codes, never dialled without the gatekeeper 0 unless you're ringing in from abroad (and therefore can't access 1** or 9** service numbers anyhow), and never dialled at all if you're calling from a local landline.
Ergo there's nothing to prevent telecoms providers in England / Wales / Scotland / Northern Ireland from quietly mapping 911 (and 112, and most other general emergency numbers) to 999 so that panicked foreigners can quickly call for help without having to change mental gears from the code they've so far used all their lives. They need not necessarily publicise or even acknowledge it, as the need is itself basically unofficial (no-one who dials it actually "means to"), but the capability may be there all the same. The only one I think that's probably a general no-go is 666, as that actually does sometimes surface as a local exchange, when it's not excluded entirely on superstitious or religious grounds.
However, if anyone would like to furnish a few genuine, verifiable examples of UK telephone exchanges that carry a "911", or even any other "9**" number, I'll back down on this point! Otherwise, I move to have that particular note erased or clarified, as it may well be total bunk. The cite link for it is for the _Irish_ network, and despite its historic links with Britain, it is after all its own wholly different country. 193.63.174.211 ( talk) 16:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
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Silent solution 55 - that is not History. It is Procedure, and in addition there should be a link from Abandoned Calls. 94.30.84.71 ( talk) 10:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
I believe Phone fraud is relevant to emergency telephone number, what do you guys think? FRAUDSTERS (IF THE VICTIM HAS MORE TIME TO CONSIDER / ASK FOR SECOND OPINION THEN THE ATTEMPTED FRAUD IS LIKELY TO FAIL) WANT THE FICTION TO SOUND LIKE 'A REAL EMERGENCY WITH FACTUAL BASIS'. Tony85poon ( talk) 02:55, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Should lifeboats, cave rescue, mine rescue, bomb disposal, moorland search and rescue and quicksand search and rescue be listed in this article as services that can be "summoned" via a 999 call, without sources saying this? 19:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
“ | Other emergency services may also be reached through the 999 system, but do not maintain permanent Emergency Control Centres (ECC). All of these emergency services are summoned through the EDD of one of the four principle services listed above:
|
” |
What is the point of including a picture of an American (presumably Bell System) rotary phone in this article? These were never legally used in the UK, all phones being rented from Post Office Telephones until deregulation in the 1980s. British phones had different dial markings, and a number of technical differences including ringing arrangements. -- Ef80 ( talk) 14:50, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
My friend is a duck 31.124.138.122 ( talk) 16:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
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The end of the last line reads: "..and then hand over to the other force when they arrive.yh man goole". It's the "yh man goole" part that confuses me. I'm assuming it's not meant to be there, but I thought I'd check here first, before just editing it. ZellDenver ( talk) 00:22, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Quote from "History": "A valid SIM card is required to make a 999/112 emergency call in the UK.[7][8]" This is wholey inaccurate, it is required that all mobile phones be able to dail: 999, 112 & 911. I belive that there may be some other numbers in there too. ZellDenver ( talk) 00:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
The reference links 1 and 2 no longer link to the story's there meant to and need to be updated or removed if untrue.
Mountain and cave rescue? That's pretty specific types of need. Are there many people getting trapped in caves and mountains in Europe that we don't know about? Anglachel 21:01, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
Is there any evidence that such an emergency service exists in the UK? When it comes to dealing with (or planning and practicing for) any incident of a radiological or nuclear nature, the approach AFAIK is almost always one where the 3 primary services attend (the fire brigade dispatching the relative NBC special units) backed-up by specialists like the internal emergency services of the nuclear industry, MoD, NRPB, etc. -- Myfanwy 18:44, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There is the Civil Nuclear Constabulary formerly the UKAEA Constabulary. They are specifically for the protection of nuclear materials and civil nuclear sites. They as far as I know are the UK's only fully armed police constabulary. Info from CNC Website Roblynas 01:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I assume this is written 9-9-9 here to fit in with the way 9-1-1 and so on are written, but it's virtually never written with the dashes in this country - we just write 999. 81.158.205.255 6 July 2005 04:28 (UTC)
You tend to hear emergency service people referring to them as "Treble Nine" calls. -- jmb 01:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Then shouldn't 1-1-2 be moved to 112 (emergency telephone number) too? I've never seen that number written as 112 in Europe, only as 1-1-2. ( Stefan2 18:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC))
It's worth mentioning you don't need to know what service you require before dialling 999, the operator will make a judgement for you on the basis of what you're screaming. You can always ask them what is available/describe the situation.
Would it be worth including information here giving details of the procedure/etc. involved in dialling 999 (standard call) so people know what to expect - I've worked in the emergency services for a while & every little bit of info that gets out there is a benefit to our response. Unfortunately the government currently doesn't seem interested in paying for this. For an example see... http://www.diretribe.com/stuff/guide-to-having-an-emergency/ Thanks.
The major 999 providers (BT and C&W - who together deal with 99% of calls) will route calls to the following Emergency Services only: Police, Fire, Ambulance and Coastguard. Other services are accessed via those four services. In virtually all cases BT and C&W will connect the call to the service which is requested. They make no judgement call normally, and untill very recently there was no definition of what an emergency was. That definition is not used by BT and C&W. The purpose of BT and C&W is only to pass the call on as soon as possible, which normally means doing what the caller asks for. If multiple services are needed (for example following an accident) the service mentioned first will normally recieve the call. The service spoken to will liase with the other services. sb 13:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The 999 number did not originate during the Blitz as its diamond jubilee was celebrated in 1997. The first 999 call was by Mrs Stanley Beard in 1937. See: http://www.sigtel.com/tel_hist_999.html Also see the "New Shell Book of Firsts" under 1937.
I was led to believe that one of the reasons the numbers "999" where chosen is that they could be dialled in the dark as "9" was the last number on the dial and nearest the stop.
Should we mention the BBC TV program 999? Also, does anyone know the official name? I've seen things like 999 Lifesavers, but I haven't been able to find anything definitive. -- Scott Wilson 22:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Good to see our politicians have one. "In an emergency, dial 999. To have the police visit your home for non-emergencies, use 101". LMAO... -- User24 21:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I have read in the past that priority for "112" calls was written into the specification of GSM. Opinions seem to vary about whether "999" gets the same priority. Does anyone have a definitive answer? -- jmb 17:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
It is an all-service number, meaning that it should be called in any situations where state-run emergency services are needed. The three main and best-known services are fire & rescue services, police and paramedics.
Should "Paramedics" be "Ambulance"? That's what I've always called it. Which service do you require? Microchip08 15:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to sign...
Well you wouldn't say 'police constable' or 'police community support officer' when you ring for the police or 'fire command officer' or 'fire watch officer' when you ask for the fire service to come would you? It's the same thing really, paramedic is a rank just like an EMT and you can't specify which one you get, you just get whats available! So IMO asking for AMBULANCE is the correct procedure because you are asking for the ambulance service. Well thats my opinion anyway! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.78.139 ( talk) 20:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I believe there was another reason for 999 being chosen other than the one in the artice (dial design) or listed above.
Outside London, in the pre- Subscriber trunk dialling (STD) days, exchanges were broken up heirarchically into "town" mian exchanges and "village" sub-exchanges. Only main exchanges had operators on duty. Village exchanges were given dialling codes typically 81, 82 etc. To get from a village to a town you always dialled 9.
When they invented STD, and the STD code for the town was 0543, that for villageA was 054381 etc.
Thus the only number that would work in both towns and villages was 999. The "real" number was town 99. If you were in the town, 99 would work, if you were in the village, you needed to dial 9 99. The number was published as 999 for consistency.
All the above is from memory, can anybody provde a citation? TiffaF 12:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- The routing codes outlined above were pretty much the norm, although there were many local variations. Due to numbering issues, some towns used 5x or 7x codes to reach the outlying village exchanges instead of or as well as 8x, for example, and in some cases there would be 3-digit routing codes, such as 851, 852, etc.
In the most basic system where village A and village B each had trunks only to their parent exchange in town, then all calls from one village to another would be dialed via the town: 981, 982, etc. Sometimes two outlying dependent exchanges would be close enough and have sufficient telephone traffic to justify direct trunks between them, in which case other codes would be assigned. So subscribers in village A might then be told to dial 6 234 to reach village B number 234, while calls to everywhere else would still start with a 9 to reach the parent exchange.
If you wish to cite a reference, Atkinson's "Telephony" Volume 2 (Pitman, 1950) is a standard reference book from the old days and covers a lot of this.
Into the STD days, calls to adjoining STD code areas were (in most cases) still counted as local and were dialed with other local routing codes instead of the STD code. These codes to reach adjacent STD areas were typically 91, 92, 93, etc.
These ran alongside the use of 9 in small exchanges to reach the parent, so local calls from or to a dependent exchange in an adjacent area could string these together, e.g. if the town in the above example used 91 to reach the next large town, then somebody in village B would dial 991 for calls to that other town. You could even end up with a call from a dependent in one exchange to a dependent in another having a local dialing code something like 99182 -- 9 to reach YOUR parent, 91 to connect to the main exchange in the adjoining area, then 82 to reach an outlying exchange from that town.
So as this relates to 999, yes, another factor in the first digit being 9 was that at many outlying rural exchanges 9 already routed to the parent exchange, and thus allowed 999 service to be provisioned for both the main town and all its dependents without any major changes having to be made at those dependents.
The trunking on the selectors did indeed also mean that in many towns you could reach the operator with just 99, although that was never the case in London.
London used a director system, where the first three digits dialed were stored in a register and then translated into the digits needed to operate the switches to route the call. The only exception was a special arrangement so that you could reach a regular operator by dialing just 0. So in London (and the other director areas: Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester), it was always necessary to dial 999 in full. PBC1966 ( talk) 16:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It's worth mentioning that the article as far as UK access to the European 112 convention is incorrect. Despite the *GSM* standard requiring sim-less connection to the emergency services, this will not work in the UK (try it!). BT charges mobile operators for each 999 call handled - although this cost is not passed on to the caller - and therefore sim-less phones will not establish a connection as no network wants to absorb that cost for a non-subscriber. There is also the issue of not being able to ring back a sim-less phone as it has no telephone number, which would break EISEC and the verbal "escort and announce" backup method of call delivery.
Next time you find yourself with no service on your subscribed network, yet can see other providers' signals, and have your sim card in, try and get a 999/112 call to connect. You'll receive "Attempting emergency call.... call failed." This unfortunately bit me in the bottom recently where I came across the scene of an RTC and had to drive three-quarters of a mile back down the road to the public phone box to contact the emergency services. The provision of free emergency calls without a sim card or no signal on your subscribed network is at the discretion of the networks - And currently, no UK network allows this. 82.69.207.193 18:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
As the original poster stated, GSM mobile phones on UK networks will not make emergency calls on other networks or without a SIM card. Claims that they will are simply urban myth, and it's very easy to verify that this fails. Mauls ( talk) 13:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
This might be useful [ 999 celebrates its 70th birthday]. I found it looking for the story about 111 (which I'd heard 10 years ago working for BT), there's probably other things in there that can be added. Bazzargh ( talk) 01:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It works in Ireland. I just tested it. -- Evertype· ✆ 19:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have checked this with Comreg (The Irish Telecommunications Regulator which allocates numbers) and 911 is not officially part of the Irish numbering scheme and could form the first 3 digits of a normal local phone number. However, some mobile phones may automatically connect calls dialed as 911 or 999 to the GSM emergency service i.e. 112. However, this is *not* a feature of the telephone network or the Irish numbering plan. The only emergency numbers that work in Ireland are 112 and 999 any connection to 911 is being carried out by a mobile handset's internal software or a private network. 911 will *not* work on any Irish public network.
My old Nokia mobile used to rind the emergency services when you dialled 08 (which it used to do, fairly frequently, on its own accord). Does anyone know if this is an official number? KillerKat ( talk) 17:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Are there any BT, C&W etc. operators out there? If so, i'd like to begin by saying that I have always been very impressed with your professionalism and reliability. I have never once come across a bad operator and I really think that that say's something.
Could you enlighten me as to how you recieve calls and your procedures for passing them on to the relevant service and if there is much difference between passing them to each service.. i.e. different protocols/expectations for Ambo, Fire and Police? Also what happens if you cannot get through to a force and have to keep the caller on the line for 2 minutes, or longer... how does that feel... what do you do?
many thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.208.244.188 ( talk) 23:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm a 999 Operator with BT in Bangor, Wales and some of details in the article are incorrect.
HDC7777 ( talk) 16:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
New article = 999 (Emergency telephone number UK). Jamesyboy2468 ( talk) 18:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
OK, maybe it might cause confusion in Ireland / Eire, but I cannot say I have ever seen or heard of a local _UK_ exchange (usually a 3 digit #, or 4 in London now) that starts with a 9. Never seen a number written down that uses one, never seen one described as the code for a particular area. I would expect they're deliberately withheld, the same as those which start 0 and 1, to prevent confusion if nothing else - even if it means only 70% of the potential number space is available rather than 80%, and you lose a good few exchange mnemonics (a lot of them, at least in years past, seem to map as closely as possible to the first three letters being "spelt out" on the dial / number pad, and 9 carries WXYZ...). There's also every possibility that non-emergency 9** numbers get used as internal service codes for phone engineers etc. Nice and convenient. Or possibly just anything starting "9" gets patched through, in case some poor unfortunate started dialling 999 and got interrupted in keypad-mashing fashion.
Super-local STD codes, sure... at least, pre "phoneday". My grandparents' number (several counties away) used to start (0)927 (with a 6-digit local exchange + subscriber number, vs our 7-digit one hidden behind (0)21), and now it's (0)1927 (matching our (0)121). But those are long distance codes, never dialled without the gatekeeper 0 unless you're ringing in from abroad (and therefore can't access 1** or 9** service numbers anyhow), and never dialled at all if you're calling from a local landline.
Ergo there's nothing to prevent telecoms providers in England / Wales / Scotland / Northern Ireland from quietly mapping 911 (and 112, and most other general emergency numbers) to 999 so that panicked foreigners can quickly call for help without having to change mental gears from the code they've so far used all their lives. They need not necessarily publicise or even acknowledge it, as the need is itself basically unofficial (no-one who dials it actually "means to"), but the capability may be there all the same. The only one I think that's probably a general no-go is 666, as that actually does sometimes surface as a local exchange, when it's not excluded entirely on superstitious or religious grounds.
However, if anyone would like to furnish a few genuine, verifiable examples of UK telephone exchanges that carry a "911", or even any other "9**" number, I'll back down on this point! Otherwise, I move to have that particular note erased or clarified, as it may well be total bunk. The cite link for it is for the _Irish_ network, and despite its historic links with Britain, it is after all its own wholly different country. 193.63.174.211 ( talk) 16:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
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Silent solution 55 - that is not History. It is Procedure, and in addition there should be a link from Abandoned Calls. 94.30.84.71 ( talk) 10:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
I believe Phone fraud is relevant to emergency telephone number, what do you guys think? FRAUDSTERS (IF THE VICTIM HAS MORE TIME TO CONSIDER / ASK FOR SECOND OPINION THEN THE ATTEMPTED FRAUD IS LIKELY TO FAIL) WANT THE FICTION TO SOUND LIKE 'A REAL EMERGENCY WITH FACTUAL BASIS'. Tony85poon ( talk) 02:55, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
Should lifeboats, cave rescue, mine rescue, bomb disposal, moorland search and rescue and quicksand search and rescue be listed in this article as services that can be "summoned" via a 999 call, without sources saying this? 19:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
“ | Other emergency services may also be reached through the 999 system, but do not maintain permanent Emergency Control Centres (ECC). All of these emergency services are summoned through the EDD of one of the four principle services listed above:
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What is the point of including a picture of an American (presumably Bell System) rotary phone in this article? These were never legally used in the UK, all phones being rented from Post Office Telephones until deregulation in the 1980s. British phones had different dial markings, and a number of technical differences including ringing arrangements. -- Ef80 ( talk) 14:50, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
My friend is a duck 31.124.138.122 ( talk) 16:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)