[Electronics-Talk] free 411

[Gerald Levy]

Here's the problem with directory assistance services, whether it's 
800-FREE-411 or the traditional 411.   In the good old days, when big 
bad Ma Bell, aaka the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, actually 
a collection of separate wholly-owned regional operating companies under 
the so-called Bell unbrella, was the only provider of phone service,all 
companies and individuals were listed in their database, so when you 
dialed 411, an operator could look up the number for you, and there was 
a better than 90% chance that she could find it.  For instance, before 
1982, when Ma Bell was broken up into 7 separate, independent regional 
Bell operating companies, New York Telephone was a wholly owned 
subsidaiary of AT&T, so if you dialed 411 in New York City, you could 
get the phone number for a company located in Los Angeles, because the 
phone company there, Pacific Bell, was also a wholly owned subsidiary of 
AT&T.  But today, thanks to deregulation, there is no single phone 
company or service provider that maintains a centralized list of all 
phone numbers for every company and individual in the US, so 411 and 
free 411 services have become essentially useless.  So if your land-line 
or cell phone carrier is Verizon, which became the successor to New York 
Telephone through a series of mergers and consolidations since 1982, , 
for instance, and you dial 411 you will only have access to phone 
numbers for companies and individuals who are registered with Verizon.  
If their primary carrier is another phone company such as AT&T or 
T-Mobile or Consumer Cellular, then you will be out of luck.  Welcome to 
the new and chaotic wild, wild west of totally unregulated and 
fragmented telephone service. What a mess!!!  When you dial 411 on your 
Consumer Cellular cell phone, they will probably only have access to 
phone numbers for companies and individuals registered with Consumer 
Cellular, which is a relatively small number, because most listings are 
still registered with Verizon, which is the largest phone service 
provider and the only one which still has a historical connection to the 
old Ma Bell/American Telephone & Telegraph company.  Don't confuse 
Verizon with today's AT&T, which has no connection to the original 
company of the same name and is actually the successor to MCI, which was 
one of the 7 original RBOC's created in 1982. If all this sounds 
confusing, you're right.  You need a Philadelphia lawyer to figure all 
this out.


Gerald



On 1/8/2021 11:50 PM, Rob Kaiser via Electronics-Talk wrote:
> I don't know what list to send this to, so, I'll try this 1. I'm with
> consumer Cellular. My internet was down a few days agao & I needed to look
> up a phone number. The only way I could get free directory assistance was to
> use free 411. This is what consumer cellular told me. If I used their 411
> there was going to be a fee. When I called free 411, I wasn't even able to
> give them a name of the business I wanted to look up. Now, I've had problems
> with free 411 before, but this was the worst. Is free 411 not working any
> more? If this is so, do we have any platforms where we can get free
> directory assistance if our internet is down? Or, are we doomed to having to
> either wait until our internet comes up or pay a fee to call Directory
> Assistance?
>
>   
>
>   
>
> Rob Kaiser Email;
>
> rcubfank at sbcglobal.net
>
>   
>
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