No more '08' in Sweden
Sweden's area codes will soon be nothing but a memory. Post-och telestyrelsen (the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority) is planning on removing them, but it will take time and it won’t be cheap. It’s the cell phones that is to blame. Today there are 13 million cell phone subscriptions in Sweden and 4.6 million subscriptions for landlines. “The area codes have their part,” says Bo Martinsson at PTS. “It’s only right to remove them.” For years and years, Swedes outside of Stockholm, used to refer to Stockholmers as “nollåttor” (zero-eighters) because the Stockholm area code is 08.