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Canada's Largest Cities Seeing the End of the Phone Book
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."
Why get rid of it completely? It doesn't need to be a "every year or never again" type of thing. Why not say you'll put out one new one every other year for a few years, then one new one every 5 years for a while?
This might be an interesting concept but what about the follow through? It mentions about online directories which might be fine and great for major cities but they are horrible for small towns (like the one I live in). I find it really hard if possible to find many of the local businesses from online information mainly because 1) I'm in a small town and so I'm guessing I don't count as a big enough market and 2) Small businesses are just that, small and often don't bother having an online presence. Now if companies like the Yellow Pages are going to put a solid effort in keeping their online site up to date then it might not be so bad. But I keep finding that they don't and small businesses are the ones that pay the penalty and the big ones just expect you to just use their sites 'store locater' so they don't care
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
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.
BAIN http://www.devslashzero.com
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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"Do we now expect everyone's grandma to look up phone numbers on the Internet? " Actually, yes. It goes something like this: Grandma calls her favorite grandson; Grandma: Hey Dick, this is your grandma. Can you look up a number for me? Grandson: Sure, Grandma. What d'ya need? Oh, by the way, I can also bring you my old computer. That way you not only save a tree, but help me recycle my old hardware. Can you see where we're going yet?
But the first thing I do when I need to email someone is dust off and flip open the big ten pound thousand page tissue-paper thin book and start flipping!
I am currently using mine to support my futon, the middle leg snapped, and the support bar is bent so this book sits below to prevent the bar from bending further.
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.
I only see the "phonebook" sized directories used to prop open doors or as monitor stands.
OTOH the "paperback" sized directories are useful for carrying in cars or keeping on a handy shelf.
Dang. I'm gonna miss this annual event:
Navin R. Johnson: The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!
Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.
Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.
[the Sniper points to Navin's name in the phone book]
Sniper: Johnson, Navin R... sounds like a typical bastard.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Exactly. Cell phone numbers often aren't listed in phone directories. To make matters worse, many people frequently change cell phone numbers, especially those with pre-paid phones; when the service expires so does the phone number (even if it was "ported", which comes as a nasty surprise for some).
Ron
...up phone numbers on the Internet? Of course. Everyone's grandma is knowledgeable enough to be asked when it comes to internet legislation. Want to introduce new sorts of internet censorship? New data retention laws? Do a poll in some home for old people. Result? 90% 'of course we need to regulate the evil internet'. So I expect everyone's grandma to be able to look up numbers on the internet.
I've been complaining to them about this by email - I don't want your stupid phone book, or your yellow pages!!!
They go into the recycling bin, unopen.
Why should my municipality have to pay to recycle that crap?
Why do we act like grandma's are so stupid?
Really, with the way this summary reads, do we even believe grandma could read the phonebook?
What is easier: 1) typing someones name and having the results appear right away, or 2) flipping through the thousands of pages until you get to the right letter?
I'm over 50, and the damned phone books haven't been much use for several years anyway. When Ma Bell and AT&T were the only people who published phone books, I could navigate them quickly and easily. Then half a dozen different companies started publishing them, all in slightly different formats. Then, a separate book for the yellow pages became the norm, meaning I had to keep up with yet another phone book. Then, each publisher decided that I really wanted to see a different set of cities listed in my directory, "helpfully" eliminating listings from cities or towns that routinely did business in.
I have relied on online directories for at least 5 years now, because the physical phone book is worthless!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
A state legislator introduced a bill to require telcos to change "receives a phone book" from "yes" to "must request it". By the time it came up for a vote, some of those who'd previously supported the bill now were against it--even one of the bill's authors. Yellow Pages advertising is big business here in the US. Regional telcos are grabbing at anything they can to "monetize" and the ad revenue in phone books was a cash cow. I get a "real" phone book published by the telco and one that's purely ad driven that I toss into recycling straightaway. Once the Greens start slapping these senators at the ballot box, stuff like the phone book "opt-in" thing is going to have to go from city to city. Palo Alto and some neighboring cities have already banned plastic grocery bags, styrofoam cups, and containers. Telling the local phone company that they have to ask each of their Palo Alto customers if they want a phone book is just another issue. Unfortunately, yelling at a city councilman at a council meeting for caving to a lobbyist is easier than at a state senator at a local town hall meeting. And it gets more press.
You are right!
For grandma, the printed books are useless - she needs a magnifying glass to RTSFP (Read The Smudgy Fine Print).
We're all getting older.
Which is more effective?
12 advantages of the Internet over the Yellow Pages
The Yellow Pages are as obsolete as that old ColecoVision.
Uh, to look up the name of a local business you know that you want to call for an inquiry but don't know their number? There's also nothing 'stalker-like' about looking up the number of a person you probably have not met, like for returning their lost property (wallet or whatever) or runaway pets to them or many other scenarios like this. There'd be no way for you to otherwise ask them for their number. How did you deal with these situations without using any kind of white pages, printed or online?
Also landlines will always work in case of power outage (good luck if your cell phone battery dies), are cheaper (cell phone plans in Canada are still ripoffs), and will not have issues routing calls to long distance numbers, which I have had happen to my on my cellphone in the past. It's always good to have both.
Of course not, they expect them to call 411 and find out the number for $1.45 per request, rather than look it up in the phone book for free. It's what the pointy-haired phone company execs would call "monetizing informational resources". Yeah, there are free 411 services like Google's but many people don't even realize these services exist.
I have "naked DSL" with no dialtone at my house, so of course I get:
1. The telephone company's official phone book (which isn't actually produced by the telephone company, and hasn't been for years, and is so full of errors that the telephone company is forced to send a letter-to-the-editor of the local paper explaining that it's not their fault)
2. The paperback-sized one that's just for my side of the county, also from the telephone company.
3. Some unofficial book from some other publisher
4. Another copy of the same unofficial book stuffed into my tiny post office box.
And the office gets some huge number of all of the above, and an email goes out to everyone saying "new phone books are here! come get one if you want, and please put your old one in the next pile over for recycling."
So... I have been taking my old phone books and the new phone books to work, and putting them in the pile for recycling. Sure, it makes my bike heavier on the uphill commute to work, but hey, burn more calories, get rid of phone books, it's a win-win. :)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Because we all have them and know their technical capabilities. Grandmas have enough trouble using the phone, let alone handling tasks like left click and right click, understanding a web browser, the internet etc.
I've met some older women have no trouble with any of these things. I haven't met an 80yr old power user yet but I've met 70 yr olds who can browse alongside their grandchildren. Sadly, in the real world this is the exception and not the norm.
It isn't really about intellect. The elderly are afraid of change and for them digital interaction is change.
It costs money to receive a cell call. If I want you to have my phone number, I'll give it to you.
I think published directories should be an opt-in service.
"(Actually true about the lady in the phone and my Gran, I won't even try to explain about her and ATMs)"
Either that or you are gullible and she likes to fuck with you.
I've known quite a few older people. They all play the old card and pretend to forget things or that they don't know how to do things to get other to do them. If they don't like the current conversation they will inject a whole new conversation or pretend they can't hear and people dismiss it as senile old grandma.
"Hi Dick, it's your Grandma. Cann you look up a number for me? Yes I know you gave me that computer-ma-jig to do it for me, but that's the problem you see. It broke and I need the number for a repair man"
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
It's not though.
I have seen some weird regional hybrid books with "selected" numbers. I can live with four complete phonebooks. Those "Selected" thingies are distracting.
But weren't the Telcos whining about 5 years ago "it's copyrighted"?
I'd LIKE a list in a parseable(sp?) format.
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Apparently the phone company will still send you a printed phone book if you call them and ask, How are the people without Internet, and now, without a phone book, supposed to find out what their number is?
No, for the FEW they need they can fucking call Information.
BTW if they are too old to use a PC they probably can't read the phone book.
I'm old, I adapted, so can they.
It's cruel not to wean people, and if you don't, more people latch onto the same teat.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Since I usually use the back door, and the front door is for taking out the trash, the last Yellow Pages I got never made it out of its plastic.
By all means, print a few white pages and give grandma the comfort on request but I've been wondering about this for years.
The Portuguese "pages" don't offer an API, but they use Javascript as a templating language, so if you check the html, there's a nice JSON list with the results, all with nice tags.
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The Phone Books for generations, have traditionally been the best booster seat ever invented for family get togethers around the dinner table. What will I do now for the Grand-kids to have them feel included at these important social gatherings. This is yet another threat to the stability of the family unit. :)
It costs money to receive a cell call
Only in the USA. Pretty much everywhere else in the world, it costs money to make a call, doesn't to receive it. Mobile phone numbers have their own prefix (rather than a geographic one, which doesn't make sense for a phone that can work anywhere in the world), so you know that it will be billed as a call to a mobile, rather than a call to a landline.
Most mobile phone companies charge the same amount for calls to mobiles as for calls to landlines, and make calls to their own network cheaper than calls to landlines, so it's often less expensive to call a mobile from a mobile than from a landline. In addition, for low-volume users, you can get a mobile with no fixed monthly fee. The amount I spend on calls with my mobile is less than half of the line rental for a landline (which doesn't include any calls).
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In New Zealand we use the printed Yellow Pages all the time, because the website sucks so much. First hit for 'cafe' in (my area) was a vineyard that was 42km away.
It costs money to receive a cell call. If I want you to have my phone number, I'll give it to you.
Do you pay to receive you mail as well, I thought that went out in the 1800's
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
1. Grandma doesn't have WiFi (or any internet) at home
2. Grandma doesn't want to pay ATT 3G when she already pays for her olde landline.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Windows folk. Think yourself lucky he didn't diss the Mac one-button mouse in the same sentence as saying it's all-too-hard for Grandma.
Call the phone company and request 5-10 of them, so you have spares just in case.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Luckily, USA telcos aren't in charge of the snail mail, or we WOULD be charged for incoming. :P
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Or the internet. She has her own personal phone book of handwritten names, addresses, and phone numbers. It also has all kinds of additional data that isn't in the white pages like birthdays and anniversaries. She updates it whenever someone moves, and she knows which people in that phone book know other numbers so if she needs a new number for someone she can get it easily.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
For a long time I've been wondering "why do we need phone books?". Other than occasionally looking up the number of a business in the Yellow Pages, I have never used the phone book to find somebody's phone number (and I'm probably a lot older than the average Slashdot reader). I already know the phone numbers of my friends and relatives, so why do I need the numbers of a hundred thousand strangers? Then there's people with unlisted phone numbers and cell phones, none of which are listed in any phone book.
Don't worry about Grandma, she has all the phone numbers she need written on bits of paper, stuck to the front of the refrigerator.
This is a very good step!! Phonebooks are useless already because they don't contain cellphone numbers. Not that I would suggest that those should be included.
And grandma anyway can't find her reading glasses.... :-)
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
It costs money to receive a cell call
Only in the USA. ...
FAIL... Canada also
the physical phone book is worthless!
I wouldn't say they are worthless. The 4 to 8 of them I get a year make wonderful backstops for BB gun targets in the basement. After they no longer stop a BB they make excellent fire-starters when I go camping
The physical book may be worthless as a directory but it still has other uses
Time to offend someone
Yellow pages is horrible online... I have a better chance finding companies without websites on google then I do finding anything on the yellow pages website.
Most people don't have their computers running 24/7, and it takes a minute to boot up. I can find a number in a phone book far faster than I can boot a computer and look it up there.
And if you're looking at every page in the book, you have other problems as well. Of course, your misuse of the apostrophe in two instances (using it for a plural but not with a possessive) suggests to me that you may not have much experience with physical books, which may possibly be the problem here.
Free Martian Whores!
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa-Gatineau, Montreal and Quebec City
Quebec City no longer has an NHL franchise. They don't belong on the list.
Unless Canadian phone companies are currently sending phonebooks to Denver.
This would be fine and all, except there's no real online equivalent. Canada411.com is supposed to be the same thing, but it's got nowhere near the same listings as the printed phone book does.
So in this case, it's not really just a change in how it's delivered. It's degradation of the quality of the available information.
Until they fix that, I'll need to keep requesting the dead tree version. (Not to mention that version also works during a blackout when I need to call the power company and tell them there's a blackout.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Also landlines will always work in case of power outage
No they won't. When tornados tore through my neighborhood in 2006, landlines didn't work for weeks (my power was out for a week), but my cell phone never stopped working. I charged it up at my office, and they do make chargers that will plug into your car's 12 volt supply.
are cheaper
Not for me; almost all my family is a long distance call away. I pay $50 per month for my cell, it would be at least triple that with a landline. As it is, I can call my mom and talk for an hour, but if she calls me it has to be short -- she has a landline, and long distance charges are by the minute.
Free Martian Whores!
"Why do we act like grandma's are so stupid?"
You've obviously never met mine.
Just kidding, Grams. You're the best.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Last week I got another edition of the yellow pages. Before tossing it out, I decided to look up a type of business I had been meaning to look up for a while. I found a single ad-style listing with no address. I tossed the book right out.
This morning I tried looking up the same type of business on Google Maps. It found 344 results and pointed out a few of them on the map, one of which happens to be just a mile and a half from home.
Looking things up on the Internet is not only more convenient, it's also more informative and apparently more comprehensive.
I get 6 to 8 phone books a year from different local and long distance companies. The free compost is nice but it seems to be a rather wasteful way to deliver it.
http://nwbagpipes.com/
I would like to have my mobile number listed in the directory, yet no such option exists at any price. This is absurd.
After working in Directory for several years, it's very clear that the phone company knows that they are selling advertising to just about every business with a phone number and delivering it to the door of millions of potential customers, and making a huge amount of money: only Wireline (what most people think of as The Phone Company) netted more and it took about ten times the number of people. The major successful effort is the categorization of businesses/products/services. As has been pointed out elsewhere here, reproducing the experience of the yellow pages online is very challenging, especially to an industry that historically thinks well managed change takes a decade to deploy and has a lifetime also measured in decades.
I have tried to get off these phone book distribtution lists for a long time. The delivery people don't use lists though; everyone gets one. In apartment complexes they dump a palet of the huge phone books and they do it semi-annually, if not more frequently. Their motivation is in the yellow pages - plain and simple advertisements. They make a a much higher profit on the book advertising than with online advertising. The only solution is to confront it by muicipality and require the bastards to use specific lists, giving residences opt-out capability.
As an apartment dweller, I've observed a monstrous pile of phone books get delivered to the mail room every year. It's always the same thing - after a few weeks, about 10% of the books are actually taken, and the rest get recycled. I'm very glad to see someone finally realize how ridiculous and wasteful this really is.
1-800-GOOG-411 its free and grandma can thing she is talking to a real person!
Why did you have to confuse the thread with facts?
Maybe nobody will notice your comment.
What happens if the power goes out, so you can't look up a number on the internet?
"fine a person" sites, don't provide the same functionality as a phone book, but boy are they lucrative. Whenever I don't agree with someone I fine them $50.
Ever since I had a phone in Canada (1995?), the phone books always went straight to the trash (well OK recycling bin). So they *finally* almost got the message. Almost, since they will still print the useless pages. Oh, well, what the hell.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You have to pay everytime they come to pick up your trash?!?!
The city doesn't do that for free as a part of normal city services?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Is there anything more useless than the phone book these days? Right about now, TV Guide is laughing at the phone book.
If there was a way that I could opt out of getting that slab of dead tree dropped on my doorstep, I'd do it in a heartbeat. That thing weighs more than the computer that I can look up the same information on 100x faster and more accurately. Even if I did want the damn thing, there's nowhere to put it in my house, because it's so damn big. What am I supposed to do with that, throw it on the roof until I need it? Prop open a door?
Yeah, I know, it's made of whatever% of recycled paper, and is 100% recycleable. Unfortunately, it's also 100% useless, and a 100% waste of energy to deliver it to me, and for me to drop it directly in the recycle bin, and the trash hauler to take it away.
Thank $_DEITY they put them in those plastic bags to prevent them from getting wet while they moulder away on my porch though. I want them to be in pristine condition when I shitcan them. Hopefully I don't throw my back out lifting the fucker.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Land lines have a number of advantages over cell phones. For one, I can have one land line that anybody in the house can answer from any of about a half dozen extensions that I have in the house. With a cell phone, you have to lug it with you in order to answer it, but with a land line, there is an extension in most every room that I am likely to answer a phone in. I don't know about other people, but when I get home, the cell phone comes off the belt clip (in fact, the belt usually comes off and I put on some shorts), and I usually ignore the cell phone until the next morning.
Another advantage with land lines is that if you are trying to reach someone at home, you can just ring the number. You don't have to try to guess which one of your family members might be home and then call their cell phone.
Another advantage of a land line is that cell phones are unnecessarily expensive. For the cost of one cell phone, I could have two land lines.Yet I have 7 people in my household. I could get 1 landline for the cost of 1/14th of the amount of cell phones required to meet the need.
Another advantage of the land line is that the batteries don't die.
Another advantage is that nobody can text you on a landline.
Another advantage is that when people illegally call your phone number which is also on the do-not-call list, on your landline it only costs you your patience and not actual minutes of use like it does when they illegally call you cell phone number.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Generally here in the US calls in network are free, calls to anyone on nights and weekends are free. On some plans calls to all mobiles are free or calls to a fixed list of numbers.
Any other time you are on your phone, it uses minutes. There are generally a fixed number of minutes included in your plan.
With a landline local calls and all incoming calls are free. Long distance calls are charged by the minute.
and they are highly useful to printmakers -- you can clean your brushes on them and wipe down your work surface with them instead of buying paper towels or rags that you then just have to throw away.
Nope, most houses in the Houston area have to pay a trash company. Apartments have a contract for the residents, some home owners associations make it part of their dues, but a lot of homes are on their own.
I know what you're talking about though. Where I grew up in Pecos it was just part of the water bill and was a lot easier to deal with.
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atmosphere CO2 -> feeds trees -> feed paper plants -> feed phone-book production -> stored in houses/underground
That will help to save a lot of money