By FRED A. BERNSTEIN The New York Times March 9, 2006
Calling 411 for directory assistance can be maddeningly expensive. Carriers like Sprint and Verizon charge more than $1 and sometimes as much as $2 a call from a cellphone..
And much of that is profit. Directory assistance "truly is a cash cow," said Saroja Girishankar, a vice president at the Pelorus Group, a telecommunications market research firm based in Raritan, N.J. She and other industry analysts said that the carriers paid wholesalers -- who actually provide the 411 service -- from 25 to 50 cents a call.
Naturally, the wireless carriers and directory assistance companies want to keep the cash cow in their barn. But increasingly, customers have access to free alternatives to 411. And as cellphones become more sophisticated, the options for avoiding paid directory assistance are multiplying.
Already, two new services -- 800-FREE-411 and 800-411-METRO -- offer directory assistance free of charge, though users have to listen to advertisements.
Other companies, including Google, offer free directory assistance via text message. Soon, voice-activated search engines may make it possible to bypass directory assistance entirely. One contender, the Maestro system, a voice-activated search engine being developed at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, will allow users to surf the Web just by speaking and listening.
To keep users calling their paid 411 services, the major wireless carriers have added features like horoscopes, sports scores and stock prices. As cellular bandwidth increases, those offerings will go from voice to text to multimedia, said Tom Moran, executive director of product management and development for Verizon LiveSource. (LiveSource, owned by Verizon Communications, handles about 1 billion
411 calls a year for customers not only of Verizon Wireless, but of T-Mobile, Cingular and Alltel.)Now just as Divestiture allowed for '1010 calling' the '00' operator and the default long distance 1+ carriers to be chosen by consumers, it also allowed for '411' to be a consumer choice; but _just try_ to get your telco to agree to send _your_ 411 traffic to the bureau of your choice. They will not do it! They may, someday, if/when lawsuits force them to comply with this provision, but until then, telco continues to control the destiny of '411' itself; telco's own choice of overpriced bureau, etc. People who do not like it, have to work around it, just like years ago when we had to dial 950-whatever to use MCI/Sprint. The service which sponosors the Digest is one such example: You have to dial 1-877-327-9411, or 877-EASY-411.
Some users have built that into speed dial buttons on their phones. Other users have added 'intercept boxes' (such as what Sandman offers) to listen on line for '411' and on hearing it, to drop the connection and immediatly dial 1-877-327-9411, at _65 cents per call_.
How do they know who to bill? Well, you enroll for the service by going to
If your computer has speakers/sound card you can hear a sample call to EASY411 on their web site. Consider using EASY411 as your directory assistance provider please. It is real time, as up to date as all such bureaus are (within a day or two?), and you will be helping this Digest.