A friend has recently moved to Taiwan. She has now got a cellular phone and gave me a number. She said she’s not sure how I call her, but if someone also in Taipei were calling her, they’d dial 091-73-xxx-73 (the 'x’s are digits I’ve deleted for privacy sake, obviously).
I’ve tried dialing 011-886 and then those digits, but keep getting what sounds like a fast busy tone. I suppose it could be a busy tone, but I’m not sure that it would have been busy for that long.
I’ve checked a couple of websites that have Taiwanese phone numbers on them and found that if it’s a land line in Taipei, it is a six- to eight-digit phone number preceded by the city code of ‘2’. Cellular phones seem to always start with ‘09’.
Am I doing something wrong or do I need to do more to call her? Does a cellular still need to be preceded by the city code?
Having the “0” in the local dialing protocal, but not the overseas method is common throughout the world, although not in the US. I’d say that’s a good idea-- dropping the “0”.
One of the Irish cell prefixes is 086, and we regularly rang Taiwan by mistake while drunk. Caused much confusion with the phone bill before we realised what the problem was.
Yes, the 0 is just the national long distance prefix which you do not need to dial from abroad. In the USA the long distance prefix is “1” and the country code is also"1" but this is just a coincidence. When calling the USA from abroad you dial the “1” for the country code but not the “1” for the national long distance access. You will find countries which use 9 or 0 for long distance access but that number is not needed when calling locally (except in some exceptions where it is).
so, to dial Taiwan you dial:
International access: 011 in the USA
country code: 886 for Taiwan
Phone number without national long distance access code which is only used inside the country.
BTW, this information can be found in the first few pages of your phone book and the phone operator will also give it to you if you ask nicely.