Big city phone books will no longer be delivered

Cyberspace swallows Toronto’s phone book - thestar.com
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The Yellow Pages
Group, Canada’s leading provider of print and online directories,
has asked the Canadian
Radio-television Telecommunications Commission to no longer require
mass distribution of the residential listings phone book in seven big
cities, including Toronto. In those cities, home and business listings
are in separate directories. The phone book for businesses, the yellow
pages, is still slated for door-to-door delivery.

The requested change would save 35 metric tons of paper every year,
says Annie Marsolais, communications director for Yellow Pages Group.
The CRTC is still reviewing the matter.

More consumers are letting their fingers do the scrolling,
searching online for home phone numbers or storing them on their
cellphones, she explains. Some cellphone users no longer bother with a
land line and aren’t listed in any directory.

“Our industry is evolving and we have to adapt,” says Marsolais.

About two to five per cent of the normal run of home phone books
will be printed. But those who want them need to request them. Consumers
can ask for the 2010 ones by calling 1-800-268-5637 or by visiting ypg.com/delivery.
More than 35,000 printed copies are presently in storage.

This is a long-distance trend. Earlier in May, Verizon, the
largest phone company in New York State, also asked regulators for
permission to end mass delivery. Such approval has already been granted
to distributors in four states.

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