In Austria you should always say your last name when picking up the phone. Don’t say just “ Hallo” or “Ja” – this is considered to be rude. If you see a friend’s number on the display, you can say your first name of course.
Calling prefixes
Dialling local numbers in Austria can be confusing:
- To call a local number within your own area, dial the number only. You don’t even have to dial the area prefix code.
- To call to another area, dial the respective area code first. When calling within Austria, you have to dial "0" followed by the area code (i.e. 01 for Vienna). Area codes and phone numbers in Austria are variable length: for some big cities you have just a 2 digit code (Vienna = 01), for most of the rest it is a 4 digit prefix code.
- To call from abroad to a number in Austria, dial your international access number (usually 00), followed by the country code of Austria and then the area code without the 0 (i.e. 0043-1 for Vienna)
If you are not sure how to dial a number, just always add the country and area prefix, this will work in any case.
To make a call from a mobile phone to a fixed line number, you always have to add the area prefix code. To call from a mobile to another mobile phone, you must add the prefix code of the mobile service provider of the person you are calling (0664 for A1, 0699 for ONE, 0676 for T-mobile, 0650 for Tele-ring and 0660 for 3). This is less complicated because people will always give their mobile number with the code.
Calling rates
As the telephone market changes constantly and everyone has different calling habits, it is impossible to suggest the cheapest option. In general, calls within the same mobile network are very cheap, sometimes even free depending on your contract type. Calls from fixed line to fixed line are quite cheap. However, there are now several fixed line providers, so you should check the rates before spending hours on the phone.
Calls from fixed line to mobile (and vice versa) are expensive. There are packages which combine a certain mobile network with a fixed network, which can make calls cheaper. To make it even more confusing, there are additional rates for calling to and from VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones.