Canada's Largest Cities Seeing the End of the Phone Book 206
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."
Misleading summary. (Score:5, Informative)
It seems the trend is more general (Score:3, Informative)
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.
I used to get obnoxious quantities of phone books. (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?
That wouldn't be better (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.
Re:I wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
But directory will be exactly the same, just not in paper form.
Germany already has this (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.
California tried this but the telco's blocked it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Misleading summary. (Score:3, Informative)
Same as here in Sweden.
Re:About time! (Score:3, Informative)
5 million trees are used to print the US phone book, the stuff costs a fortune and it has to go the way of the newspapers and dodos.
http://www.banthephonebook.org/ [banthephonebook.org]
Re:Grandma's doesn't need to be yearly (Score:1, Informative)
In europe, nobody is using landlines anymore, but in U.S (and Canada?) where mobile networks are still pretty hard to reach at some areas and are unrealiable, it's very common to still use landlines. Only couple of years ago, it was said that only poor people give up land lines in U.S.
Re:People still use land lines? (Score:1, Informative)
It costs money to receive a cell call
Only in the USA. ...
FAIL... Canada also
Re:That wouldn't be better (Score:1, Informative)
You are correct. I actually did this in College. You got paid for each book delivered and to make sure it was done the printing company did spot checks across the city. If your delivery area was checked and they denied getting their book then you were held liable for breach of contract. They threatened 3x what you were paid, but never knew if that ever happened.
Re:Misleading summary. (Score:3, Informative)
I don't use the online yellow pages. They're just as junky.
I use this thing called a search engine. There are hundreds of them out there - free.
And a yellow pge listing is no guarantee of it being legit. The lawyer who had the exterior back cover (color) and a two-page color spread for several years on a 4" thick phone directory is now on the lam for embezzlement.
About Damn Time! (Score:2, Informative)