Well, they do come in handy, once in a while..........
Posted on 11/11/2010 7:31:02 AM PST by Beaten Valve
What's black and white and read all over? Not the white pages, which is why regulators have begun granting telecommunications companies the go-ahead to stop mass-printing residential phone books, a musty fixture of Americans' kitchen counters, refrigerator tops and junk drawers.
In the past month alone, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania approved Verizon Communications Inc.'s request to quit distributing residential white pages. Residents in Virginia have until Nov. 19 to provide comments on a similar request pending with state regulators.
Telephone companies argue that most consumers now check the Internet rather than flip through pages when they want to reach out and touch someone.
"Anybody who doesn't have access to some kind of online way to look things up now is probably too old to be able to read the print in the white pages anyway," joked Robert Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University.
Phone companies note that eliminating residential white pages would reduce environmental impact by using less paper and ink. It also can't hurt their bottom lines to cut out the cost of a service that rarely gets used and generates little beyond nostalgia.
The first telephone directory was issued in February 1878 — a single page that covered 50 customers in New Haven, Conn. That sheet grew into a book that became virtually a household appliance, listing numbers for neighbors, friends and colleagues, not to mention countless potential victims of prank calls.
Fewer people rely on paper directories for a variety of reasons: more people rely solely on cell phones, whose numbers typically aren't included in the listings; more listings are available online; and mobile phones and caller ID systems on land lines can store a large number of frequently called numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Well, they do come in handy, once in a while..........
I still use the phone book.
I was just thinking yesterday, as I replaced the the “old” yellow pages under my phone with the “new” yellow pages, “I think this is the third time I’ve done this without ever having opened the “old” books.”
Oh no, now Robert Reich won’t have anything to sit on so he can see over his desk.
The phone book is the most useful book after the Bible and the dictionary.
Awww.... what will I use to clean my windows with now?
They can ease up on the yellow pages too...we get about seven every year.
They can ease up on the yellow pages too...we get about seven every year.
The cost per client is about one fifth of the old Yellow Pages.
What are the senior citizens going to use? Many of them don’t go online, or even have computers.
>>Telephone companies argue that most consumers now check the Internet rather than flip through pages when they want to reach out and touch someone. <<
Anyone notice that a lot, if not all, white page websites are pay sites?
I always thought you could make a great atificial fire log out of old phone books if you dunked them in some melted was
Does anyone know where you can get bulk wax?
WAX
not was d’oh!!
I wonder what percentage of the landfills are old phone books.
I used to get 3-4 different phone books in my little town of 14k population.
Since I dropped the landline a couple of years ago, I no longer get that one.
I do notice that the ‘new’ books each year have fewer pages than the previous year, as they only list landlines. It seems that many ‘residences’ are going mobile/cellular over landlines.
I just recently extended my cellular pre-paid (I don’t make many calls and have built up several hundred minutes) at $77 for 15 months. That same time period for the landline would have run $375 (excluding any long distance), assuming they have not raised the rates.
No wonder there are fewer pages in landline phonebooks.
I never use the white pages anymore, BUT please PLEASE don’t stop making the yellow pages, I use that nearly every day.
They’ll burn on their own if you get the fire up to Fahrenheit 451 (or so I’m told).
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