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what prefixes to use when dialing a phone number?

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drmicrochp
  3/16/2015 17:21 EST

The Chilean phone system has been so confusing to me. If you see a phone number posted on the internet, it so rarely can be dialed the way that you see it. Some rules that I have come across (correct me if I'm wrong).
1. All cell phone numbers called from a land line need to have a 9 or a 09 dialed in front of the rest of the number.
2. All land lines dialed from a cell phone need to have the regional area code dialed in front of the number.
3. Cell phone to cell phone numbers may be dialed directly (eight digits) without any extra area code prefixes.
4. All cell phones in chile are considered to have a 9 or 09 prefix regardless of the region where the phone is geographically.
5. If the area code (for a land line number) has a one digit number you have to put a 0 in front of it. Some area codes have two digits and you still have to put a 0 in front of the two digits for it to work.
6. A lot of the phone numbers published on the internet for chile will not work as it because the web page is old and needs to be updated. The numbers may be "almost" correct, but you might have to add a number. For example a seven digit number needs to have 0 or some other digit in front of it. The new telephone numbering system changed the rules for acceptable numbers recently and all the old numbers need to be "tweaked" by adding extra digits before they will work.
7. Although the country code is 56 you don't ever include those digits when dialing here.
If you ever stumble upon a better guide to understanding the phone numbers and how to dial them, please post here.

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