ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) (09/18/90)
Someone has already made posted an article here discussing Nynex's CD-ROMs containing telephone directory information for Nynex's operating companies, New York Telephone and New England Telephone. Nynex has produced a demonstration floppy disk to show off the capabilities of the Fast Trask CD-ROM. If you would like a free copy of the demo disk, call toll-free 1-800-338-0646, or write to: NYNEX Information Resources Company Attention: Fast Track P.O. Box 3518 New York, N.Y. 10277 Specify whether you want a 5.25" or 3.5" disk. Nigel Allen telephone (416) 535-8916 52 Manchester Avenue fax (416) 978-7552 Toronto, Ontario M6G 1V3 Canada
BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) (09/21/90)
In article <12300@accuvax.nwu.edu>, ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) writes: > Someone has already made posted an article here discussing Nynex's > CD-ROMs containing telephone directory information for Nynex's > operating companies, New York Telephone and New England Telephone. Having the phone book on CD-ROM is a tremendous idea, but what NYNEX is doing just seems so horribly WRONG. I see this as the non-regulated NYNEX taking advantage of their position and really ripping off the customers of their regulated operating companies NYTel and NET&T. The Feds recently fined NYNEX for other abuses, and MA and NY need to get them for the same violations. The phone company provides a pile of local books free for every phone, and in large companies that get the annual directory delivery by truck load, you probably can't find ANYONE with a recent directory. Why? The building super is no fool. He knows if they get delivered, he will have mountains of old books to cart to the dumpster. Its much simpler to take the NEW pallet load directly to the dumpster. Sure, he saves a few for 'special' people. CD-ROMS could come by mail. Here in Boston, you MUST know whether you need central, north, south or west book for the 411 folks to find anyone, and heaven help you if your lost friend moved one town farther west than the west book covers. Their service and attitude is very poor. The most frustrating thing was knowing that the CD-ROM existed last year when we had a long phone strike and 411 took many minutes to answer. If NET&T offered me a choice of CD-ROM or paper books, I would grab the CD-ROM and run. 411 would seldom if ever get called. Many obvious uses include keeping older directories for reference later to see who lived where 'back then'. Many libraries have very old phone books. CD-ROM would also be good for archiving of this sort, but NYNEX MAKES YOU return old CD-ROMS! Many people have problems reading the fine print in directories, and a simple PC based solution would solve this problem, too. Imagine a payphone with a built in CD-ROM based directory. There are ethical issues of sawing down forests to make phone books when a very inexpensive CD-ROM would be a much better solution. Making the CD-ROM master costs about $1500, and, even in modest quantities (under 100), copies with their silk-screened label, a black and white simple label insert and the plastic snap open jewel case, cost maybe $1.85 each. The raw 'stamp another disc' cost is about 26 cents. If the local telco were to offer you a choice of a CD-ROM, or the normal pile of white pages, would that seem a fair and reasonable option? Maybe a CD-ROM in place of 10 , or 20, sets for a business would make sense. Maybe extras should cost $5.00 or even an outrageous $10. Maybe monthly phone line charges for subscribers taking one CD-ROM rather than twenty sets of books should be LOWER! When I first heard on NYNEX's service it was about $10,000, and that was ONLY for a single workstation and could not be networked! The network version cost even MORE! Something smells rotten. So what is the problem? The old issue of who 'owns' the phone number list, and who can print phone books comes up. The phone industry needs its wings clipped, and though I don't seriously want more government agencies, I would suggest that if the phone companies think they 'own' our phone number list, maybe someone would suggest a government agency that would license you to use phone numbers (you would take your license to which ever dialtone provider you chose...) and this same agency would provide to anyone the master list in some machine readable form for a reasonable processing fee. Of course we don't want this to happen, BUT use the idea as a club to ensure that the telcos don't get too greedy providing lists. If your local telco is trying to get 411 made chargable, try to get the local regulators to only allow it when the telco gives you at least a LATA wide CD-ROM as an optional phone book for the same price they charge you for the current book(s). Nynex claims there is all sorts of proprietary software and database compression involved in that CD-ROM. I don't doubt it. But it won't take long for public domain software to fill the gap, and if regulatory mandates required every LEC to provide users a CD-ROM or paper book free choice, I am sure MANY software houses would gladly provide ALL NECESSARY SOFTWARE at a per copy royalty so low (pennies) that, with even a $1.85 cdrom, the TOTAL cost would be drastically less than the phone books are now. The NYNEX CD-ROM doesn't include Soundex lookup, either, so there is VAST room for improvement by somebody. Of course a combined white/yellow CD-ROM book that also had PC software ON THE CD-ROM that would let you search for a local hardware store that sold metric screws with lefthand threads and automatically dial into each hardware store's computer to check inventory and offered pricing, and even could let you place an electronic order, would need WIDE FREE distribution that the advertisers would gleefully pay for if it was competitively (NOT NYNEX style) priced. Well, next year, maybe...
jlister@marob.masa.com (John Lister) (09/29/90)
In article <12388@accuvax.nwu.edu> BRUCE@ccavax.camb.com (Barton F. Bruce) writes: >In article <12300@accuvax.nwu.edu>, ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) >writes: >> Someone has already made posted an article here discussing Nynex's >> CD-ROMs containing telephone directory information for Nynex's >> operating companies, New York Telephone and New England Telephone. >Having the phone book on CD-ROM is a tremendous idea, but what NYNEX is >doing just seems so horribly WRONG. >I see this as the non-regulated NYNEX taking advantage of their >position and really ripping off the customers of their regulated >operating companies NYTel and NET&T. The Feds recently fined NYNEX for >other abuses, and MA and NY need to get them for the same violations. >The phone company provides a pile of local books free for every phone, The problem is (as I understand it) is that the advertising pays for much of the cost of printing the phone book. However, the solution is not really the CD-ROM (though think of what the junk mail people could do if they got hold of just about all the households in a given area conveniently packaged...) rather, it is to provide online access, which is what the French have done. They have given away a (cheap) terminal to everyone with a phone for (I think) free directory lookups. A side-effect of this is that the terminal can be used for lots of other access. I have heard that Bank at home, and Prodigy-like services are making a pile of money. John Lister