[john37386]

This is a classic in America when calling Europe or International.

The dial out in corporate, usually you used 9. Then you google how to dial in Europe because the numbers are not natural. Google mentions dial 11 + country code + phone number.

So people hit 9 to dial out, then 11 to dial in Europe. Instantly you hear: Emergency 911, is this an emergency?

The dialer is like: no I'm trying to call Europe.

[iggldiggl]

Wikipedia claims you should dial 011, so does that mean those people should have correctly dialled 9011?

[AstralStorm]

9+11 specifically. Yes, a plus sign. 0 is also supposed to be mapped to plus or passed on when dialing external for compatibility reasons.

[rhino369]

International number dialing is confusing as hell. I've got a BSEE and law degree and I can't figure it out 80% of the time.

[colanderman]

No, 9011 is correct. "011", the international exit code for calling from the US, is what the + gets mapped to in a number such as "+49 xxx". It is followed by the destination country code (which starts with a 3 or 4 for Europe [1]), and then the local number. So for example, to call a number in Germany from a PBX in the US:

9-011-49-(German number) [3]

For long-distance domestic, the national trunk prefix should be used instead. For the US, this is 1 (unrelated to the US country code, which is also 1):

9-1-(10-digit US number)

For local calls, you do not need the trunk prefix, so you would dial:

9-(7-digit US number)

However, no US (or North American) area code nor central office code starts with a 1 [4]. So even in the above two cases, the sequence "911" should never occur.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_call_pre...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_calling_codes#...

[3] https://dcloud-cms.cisco.com/help/outbound_dial_patterns

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan#...