telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (02/08/90)
NYNEX is now offering their published telephone listings on compact disk. They say their compact disk will provide nearly instant access to the ten million published listings from virtually every white pages directory in the six-state region covered by NYNEX: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and part of Connecticut. All you need, they say in their ads, is a Fast Track disc and software, an IBM or IBM-compatible PC and a CD-ROM reader. NYNEX updates the Fast Track CD monthly. If you subscribe to this service, each month you will receive a completely new disk with approximatly 600,000 changes from the prior issue. Obviously, using Fast Track instead of conventional Directory Assistance you get the listings you want in a fraction of the time you would spend doing a manual lookup or to make a Directory Assistance call. The information I got from NYNEX -- no prices quoted in the introductory mailing -- does not specify at what point the *cost* per lookup becomes less than the cost of a call to DA. The material from NYNEX also discusses the use of a LAN package so that an entire network of PC's can share the Fast Track database. They are directing their marketing efforts for this new product toward credit processing centers, collection agencies, and government agencies, but invite any business person who makes heavy use of DA in the NYNEX region to investigate the product. You can receive a free Fast Track demo diskette by calling 1-800-338-0646. I suggest you may wish to have them send it to your company, by name, at your business address. I doubt they are interested in individuals who are curiosity-seekers. Patrick Townson
dave@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dave Pridgen) (02/09/90)
From article <3632@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator): > NYNEX is now offering their published telephone listings on compact > disk. They say their compact disk will provide nearly instant access > to the ten million published listings from virtually every white pages > directory in the six-state region covered by NYNEX: Maine, New > Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and part of > Connecticut. US West has had this service for almost a year now. I used it at the last company I worked for. Their disk has over 12 million listings from the fourteen Northwestern state that they cover. The service is quite nice offering amazingly fast lookup by city, state, name, phone number, or street address. The program, which also only requires a CD-ROM drive and a IBM-PC has many options including the ability to screen out listings by residential or business (all the listings have a flag which tell whether they are residential or business), various sorting options, eg. name, city, zip, etc., and numerous print options allowing you to print to a file or printer (giving you a lot of parameters you can change). The service, called Locator Plus is available by monthly, quarterly, half yearly or annual updates. I believe the service runs from about 4000 to 14,000 dollars per year depending on how many updates you contract for. David Pridgen Unify Corp Site Consultant