I thought residential users were allowed a few free calls until I found out the hard way they are not. This annoyed me since it was a changed number not available in the phone book. But I agree [users] should have a few free DA calls.
I suspect the Baby Bells realized their competition cut costs and prices by not offering any DA at all and the Bells were losing customers, so they decided to go down to that level. I suspect the number of Baby Bell telephone operators still around is a small fraction of those in service right after Divesture.
Anyway, later they must have realized there's money to be made by charging a premium fee for 411 and providing yellow pages (ie restaurants) and other services.
As an aside, Verizon sold off its directory publishing business to something called Idearc (sp?). I understand it went bankrupt. Anyone know more?
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