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Canada's Largest Cities Seeing the End of the Phone Book

Posted by timothy on from the straight-to-the-pulping-machine dept.

innocent_white_lamb writes "Telephone directories are available on the Internet, and many phones even store their own directories. There is less and less demand for a printed phone book, so residential phone books will no longer be printed and delivered in Canada's seven largest cities. Do we now expect everyone's grandma to look up phone numbers on the Internet? Of course, the Yellow Pages, where businesses pay for a listing, will still be delivered."

5 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading summary. by scdeimos · · Score: 5, Informative
    From TFA...

    Yellow Pages Group Co. said last week that it would no longer deliver residential phone books in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Montreal and Quebec City, except to customers who request them.

  2. It seems the trend is more general by bain_online · · Score: 3, Informative

    I over heard in the local telecom office here in Pune, India there will be no more printed directory here either. The last one we got is three years old.
    BTW the directories in Indian cities were distributed only by the Monopoly telecom BSNL and its Big cities cousin MTNL. With rise of private players in wired as well as the exploded mobile segment in India, the directories were not much of the use anyway. This just puts the death nail in them.

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  3. I used to get obnoxious quantities of phone books. by pecosdave · · Score: 5, Informative

    At my last rent house local telco's were in competition with each other to have the "defacto" phone book. When stacked together the phone books I got in a 1 year period were 2 ft tall. The phone companies kept trying to 1 up each other. I never actually used one of them - except one of them had a nice local map tucked in the front. I pulled it out, circled where I lived for someone who was going to visit later and handed it over.

    Why should I have to pay for trash pickup if they do free trash delivery?

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  4. That wouldn't be better by Rix · · Score: 5, Informative

    What they're doing now still lets grandma get one every year, she just has to ask for it. They're just not delivering on directly to everyone else's recycling box anymore.

  5. Germany already has this by drago · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're doing a similar kind of thing here in Germany for some years already, you only get a postcard telling you there's a new phonebook and yellowpages available and where to get it. If you want one, you can collect any number you need at the next post office, certain gas stations and in bigger cities at the central railroad station.