Is the Number Up For the Residential Phone Book? 360
Hugh Pickens writes "The first phone directory was issued in 1878, two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and for decades regulators across the US have required phone companies to distribute directories in paper form. But now the Washington Post reports that Verizon, the largest provider of landline phones in the Washington DC region, is asking state regulators for permission to stop delivering the residential white pages in Virginia and Maryland. About a dozen other states are also doing away with printed phone books as surveys show that the number of households relying on residential white pages dropped from 25 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2008. The directories will be available online, printed or on CD-ROM upon request but the inches-thick white pages, a fixture in American households for more than a century, will no longer land on porches with a thud each year. 'I'm kind of amazed they lasted as long as they have,' says Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. 'But there are some people nostalgic about this. Some people like to go to the shelf and look up a number.'"
Simple option? (Score:5, Interesting)
Create some method for people to opt out?
Or make existing methods more accessible or easier to use?
I know that if there was a simple phone number to call, and all I had to do is call in and say "Hi, I live here, don't bring me a phonebook, thanks" I would do that and be done with it.
The apocalypse (Score:5, Interesting)
As an official Old Guy, I find that rituals often have value. The morning trip to the bird feeder gives me a measure of purpose, and opening a phone book to look up a number gives me a bit of awe at the scale of my surroundings, and fixes the number in my mind for a few seconds longer than otherwise might be the case. A hypothetical EMP probably won't damage my black dial phone, and field trips to the central office indicate it might well not be damaged either, so it's nice to think two Old Guys could look each other up regardless of the internet being destroyed and chat for a while before the food runs out and the batteries in the central office run down and wild dogs begin to tear everyone apart.
Old people. (Score:1, Interesting)
For some time now this will continue to be generational.
My folks are in their 60s... Recently on one of my visits to my hometown to go see them, they wanted to look up a particular business. I was completely shocked when they looked it up in a phone book. This was something that didn't occur to me at all. While they flipped through the pages I googled it on my phone and had the answer much faster. But they insisted on looking it up in the yellow pages.
Around the same time, I moved into a building which had some older residents. The phone books were delivered regularly. I always recycled them, but I observed others keeping them. I'm now in a place where people the average age is much closer to mine, and I haven't seen a phone book for some time.
So, I predict phone books will stick around until those generations which still depend on them die out.
By the way, this is not license to mock those that still depend on them. When I had that culture shock experience with my folks, part of my reaction was to realize that even if their habits seem antiquated, previous generations still deserve our respect.
Re:Not everyone is 20 (Score:3, Interesting)
Opt-out -> opt-in (Score:4, Interesting)
Hehe, here in the Netherlands there was a TV report recently where people complained that they still received the phone book despite opting out. Then it was reported that in Belgium you don't get one anymore unless you ask for it (opt-in). Seems like a better way to me, cuts out all the waste from people that are too lazy to opt-out.
Re:Simple option? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about the even simpler option of opt in? If you find that only 11% of people use it, then making an opt out available requires 89% of the population to call in and ask to be removed.
The idea they have of making it available on CD or in print, on request, is the best way to go.
conundrum (Score:3, Interesting)
So, how do you call the power company when the electricity goes out? I mean the first time the electricity goes out, I mean (because by the time the electricity goes out for the second time, you will have looked up the number and put it in your cellphone.) Wait, no, you just look it up on your cellphone the first time, because your cellphone can access the internet.
I guess people with cellphones that can't access the internet to look up a number are becoming as rare as people with no cellphone and only a cordless phone on their landline.
Re:Simple option? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think it's really about cost anymore. I think it's about the ridiculous amount of paper every year going to print these things that I, and most other Americans, stick squarely in the trash. No one is seeing the advertising anymore, and most of these things are just tossed, unopened.
Re:Simple option? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not everyone has a computer, not everyone has one with a CD(today). I'm still waiting on internet service at home; the phonebook has been a lifesaver at the moment.
I picked a couple up at the local telephone company store, they just have a bin of them, a lot like how JCPenny and Sears would have a stack of catalogs.
Perhaps we can keep them, but do we need to print them every year anymore? Oh, and I'd say that since cell phone users have unlisted numbers by default, their usefullness is declining. Many younger people don't have home phones today, and that age is rising. Taxes on it are insane.
I'll 'have' residential phone service because it came bundled with my internet*(any day now!). Still, there's no phone hooked up to it, so when it gets listed it'll just ring and ring. Maybe give direct them to the default mailbox that I won't monitor. Worse than useless, but I'll be in the whitepages because it'd cost $2/month for me NOT to be in there. Once I get more settled, I'm going to start calling to see if I can get the phone itself shut off - even if it only saves me the taxes, that'd likely be $12/month or so.
*Better deal than cable, with which they'd effectively require me to buy cable, and the local cable has caps that the average slashdotter would bust without trying.
return them to the source (Score:1, Interesting)
Some people I know spent an afternoon collecting yellow page books, and returned them to the company HQ
http://www.yellowpagemountain.com/ [yellowpagemountain.com]
Free 411 (Score:2, Interesting)
Where will the online services get their data? (Score:5, Interesting)
The free online "white pages" services have usually obtained their data by scanning phone books. Where will they get their data now?
Since Feist vs. Rural Telephone, it's been settled law in the US that the listings in telephone directories are not copyrightable. There's no originality. This created the third-party directory industry. But for online directories, there are EULAs and rate limiting on queries. There's no way to do a bulk download. "Whitepages.com" has these terms: [whitepages.com] "Among other limitations, you may not: ... compile the Results Data in a database and store such data for any future use ... publish, transit, distribute, or resell any Results Data." AnyWho (run by AT&T) has the terms: [anywho.com] "You agree that you will not use the Service or the information obtained through the Service ... for incorporation into a commercial product or service ... to download directory listings or other information by using any type of automated means ...".
So another data source that used to be open is now closed.
Re:Simple option? (Score:3, Interesting)
I keep my paper phone book in the car, where I'm not liable to be able to look something up online.
Re:The Phone Book is dead (Score:4, Interesting)
Note that in most European countries, as the mobile phone billing system is reversed (caller pays, not callee, unless roaming in another country) it is quite popular to have mobile phone numbers in the yellow/white pages.
Just looking at the pizza section of my local area, about half the numbers are mobile numbers. Looking at the doctor section, all the doctors that do house calls have a mobile listed. Some people have the same mobile number for longer than their landline. During my teens, I had one mobile phone number, and about 8 different landlines.
This being said, you have to draw a line at some point. Would I look up my neighbour's number at 2AM? No, I'd just pull the curtains after giving him the finger. If I need to urgently call a teacher, why don't I already have the number? When I was a kid, the head teacher would ask for our phone number, at the beginning of every year. I did exactly the same, and wrote it down somewhere.
Plus, the shoot-first argument is only valid in the US. To be fair, I've never had a neighbour who'd stop something I found annoying even if I asked. Having a phone number wouldn't really matter anyway.