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This was, at least in france, a means of giving alternate phone companies the opportunity to serve customers. Thus, a number 01-1234-6789 would use france telecom, 41-1234-6789 would use tele2, etc. The first figure, 1, is reserved and used for emergence calls, e.g. 112 to call emergency, 116 to call paramedics, etc.
-er
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Bill Horne Temporary Moderator
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