Originally Posted by
Flying Lawyer
The 018X numbers are not mobil phone providers but dedictated to T-VPNs or Centrex services. There are only a few of these numbers in use in Germany. Arcor uses eg 0181, Barmer uses 0185. (Do not mix these numbers up with the 0180-X numbers)
http://mwl.t-com.de/produkte/page.php?id=5199
http://funkschau.biz/heftarchiv/pdf/.../fs0309044.pdf
This is really a fully US-centric good one. In Europe you dial 001 not to get out of the country, but you dial it - close to exclusively - to get to the US (or better North American Numbering Plan area). 00 is the international call prefix from most European countris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._call_prefixes
00 is the ITU recommandation, however, in particular the US and regions dominated by the North American Numbering Plan area do not care about this standard (the same is true for the former USSR, Japan and some other - mostly but not exclusively odd - places).
You are, of course, fully correct in that one does not dial 001 in Europe to get out of the country but to get to the USA. I misspoke in the context of calling between Germany and the USA. As a German, living in the USA, 001 and 011 are obviously my most used prefix numbers. So for example to dial to Germany from France would be 00-49 and to France from Germany would be 00-33.
Till