In the good old days, they looked at 111 at an emergency number but it was rejected because it was too easy for the digit 1 to be tapped out by in high winds by wires rubbing together.

That's why the UK went with 999 as something memorable, but slow to dial.

An odd side effect of that was that in New Zealand, where phone dials are arranged 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 instead of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0, the emergency number was indeed 111, with nine pulses for the 1 digit. British-made exchange equipment was extensively used there, so no modification was needed to make 111 the emergency number.

The reverse dial was a result of the design of early Rotary exchanges built in Antwerp around 1921. Similar Rotary exchanges were installed in Oslo as well in 1914, and Oslo also used the reverse dial (but nowhere else in Norway).

AFAIK they changed it to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3.

Sorry. Someone had to.

Try calling that number on your Android phone. It still "works" on my Essential phone with stock Android 10.

In the U.K., if the emergency number is a prefix, the call is routed to the emergency services.

* http://jdebp.uk./FGA/truths-about-telephone-numbers.html#Eme...

just take my upvote

Or for a line between telegraph poles to tap it out in the wind.

That's NHS non-emergency issues in the UK, and I presume that would have been a factor.

The NHS 111 number dates from 2009.

Because cats.

Because in the US, an initial “1” unambiguously means “this is the start of a long-distance number; a 3-digit area code follows”.