Slashdot Mirror
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?
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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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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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.
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
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.
And Grandma will correctly reply:
"Why do I have to wait 1 minute for this thing to start to get one phone number?"
"Why are you still here hours later setting this up?"
"WTF is all this other stuff"
"How long do I have to wait for the internet thing to be connected to my house?"
"Why couldn't you just solve the problem and look up the number in the first place?"
"F%$k off Dick, I'll just call Aunt June to get the number."
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.
My grandparents are all dead. So what now?
Look up your local necromancer in the Yellow Pages?
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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.