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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."

6 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. 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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  3. 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.

    1. Re:That wouldn't be better by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Funny

      I had to physically wrestle the phone book delivery guy to the ground and beat him senseless with my unwanted phonebook before he would take it back. I got a knock on my door from my neighbor the next morning saying they'd delivered two to his door. :shakes fist at phone book gods:

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  4. 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.

  5. Re:Grandma's Future by thoughtspace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."