Re: Does this issue impact all emergency phone numbers?
111 fun fact.
Now here's a thing. In New Zealand the emergency number is, in fact, 111.
I was told that this came about because when NZ went to switch to "dial" phones as opposed to operator gets your number, they decided that as it was a big investment, they would follow the international standard, hence all the dial phones were reversed with 0 being the first position, as normal but then going 1-9 around the dial.
So I was informed, all the other countries decided to ignore the supposed "international" standard and thus you guys are wrong. LOL.
This of course, meant that when tapping out the number to avoid payment in a phone box, one had to tap out the number subtracted from 10, so for, say, 483, you would tap 6, 2, and 7 times to get the correct number of pulses. Worked wonders for your arithmetic skills.
When 111 was brought in here, people, having watched British TV programs where 999 was used as an emergency number, they asked of NZ Post Office which ran the telephone system at the time, why 111, as 999 was obviously easier.
Refer above to the explanation why 999 was chosen as opposed to 000 or 111. Also not helped by the fact that in their wisdom, NZ Post decided that area codes would only be a single digit, and chose 9 as the access to the Auckland region numbers. A preceding 0 was used to access "long distance" numbers of other areas. e.g. 07, 04 etc.
I haven't tried it, but I believe that to cater for tourists panicking in an emergency and automatically "dialling" their own country's number, our the system will now also recognise 999, 911 and presumably any other emergency number used around the world.
If anyone thinks they know differently, please comment (politely) as I was told this by someone working in the communications area of a large NZ company in the 1970s.
