1-1-2

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Main article: Emergency telephone number

112 (one-one-two) is the emergency telephone number in the European Union member states, the Republic of Colombia (South America) and worldwide (on GSM mobile networks).

In 1991, the European Union established 112 as the universal emergency number for all its member states. By early 2008 in all EU countries, except for some parts of Bulgaria,^[1] 112 had already been implemented and can be called free of charge from any telephone or any mobile phone. The GSM mobile phone standard designates 112 as an emergency number, so it will work on such systems even in North America where it redirects to 911 or Australia where it redirects to 000.

The number is now regulated across the EU by the Universal Service Directive^[2].

Origins

Before 112 became a European and (via GSM) worldwide standard emergency number, it had already served for many decades as the fire brigade emergency number in Germany and Denmark.

This choice of number has the following advantages:

• A short number is easiest to remember, but since telephone numbers are prefix-free codes, a too short one would waste a large fraction of the number space. A 3-digit number uses only 0.1% of the number space, which is justifiable for an emergency number.

• Using at least two different digits significantly reduces the risk of accidental calls from numeric keypads. Young children, vibrations, defective keys and collisions with other objects are much more likely to press the same key repeatedly rather than pressing a sequence of different keys. Accidental calls to emergency centres from mobile phones are a particular problem with same-digit numbers, such as the UK's 9-9-9^[3].

• In the days of rotary dial telephones, using only those digits that require the least motion of a rotary dial (1 and 2) permitted a dial lock^[4] in hole 3 to effectively disable unauthorized access to the telephone network without preventing access to the emergency number 112. The same choice also maximized dialling speed.

Implementation

Countries which use the 112 number for emergencies include:

E112

E112 is a location-enhanced version of 112. The telecom operator transmits the location information to the emergency centre. The EU Directive E112 (2003) requires mobile phone networks to provide emergency services with whatever information they have about the location a mobile call was made. This directive is based on the FCC's Enhanced 911 ruling in 2001.

The new eCall project for automated emergency calls from cars is based on E112.

116 115

On a yearly level, the dispatchers in Finland's 112 service receive some 800,000 non-urgent calls. In order to curb this problem, which ties up precious resources, a committee proposes that Finland launch a new telephone number—116 115—for such calls. Calls to this number would also be free of charge.^[5]

114 14

The same way that 116 115 would work, Sweden has already introduced a system where less urgent callers can call 114 14 instead.

See also

• 000 Emergency phone number in Australia.
• 110 Emergency phone number in Iran.
• 111 Emergency phone number in New Zealand.
• 119 Emergency phone number in parts of East Asia.
• 911 Emergency phone number in US and Canada.
• 100 Emergency phone number in India and Israel.
• 999 Emergency phone number in United Kingdom and Ireland (Works parallel to European emergency number, 112) and Hong Kong. Formerly used in Poland. Also an emergency number in several non-EU countries.

• eCall
• Emergency telephone
• Emergency telephone number
• In case of emergency (ICE) entry in the mobile phone book.

References

External links

• European Emergency Number Association-112.