Free 411 Service as Alternate for Costly Carrier Service

Mike Temporale

http://news.com.com/The+411+on+dire...ent&tag=nl.e433

"Calling 411 for directory assistance can be maddeningly expensive. Carriers like Sprint and Verizon charge more than $1 and sometimes as much as $2 a call from a cell phone. And much of that is profit. Directory assistance "truly is a cash cow," said Saroja Girishankar, a vice president at the Pelorus Group, a telecommunications market research firm based in Raritan, N.J. She and other industry analysts said that the carriers paid wholesalers--who actually provide the 411 service--from 25 cents to 50 cents a call."

The article goes on to mention a couple new free alternatives, like 1-800-FREE-411 and Google. This just shows how much I call 411 from my cell phone because I didn't realize there was an added fee for it or that there was a 1-800 alternate for this. How many of you actually use your carriers 411 services and what is their fee like?
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Jason Dunn · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:09 am Post subject:

Yeah, 411 can be really expensive - I think on my wife's phone it's 75 cents. Pretty harsh!

Edgar · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:42 am Post subject:

Cingular is $1.50 and they charge you even if they don't find the number!

I was using one of those little addon programs that does a 411 search but it was cumbersome. I'll have to try the google etc. I don't know if I want to run with an alternative pay-for dial up service.

At home I live by Switchboard.com and anywho.com. I can do reverse lookups as well as fuzzy searches. Then for businesses locally I just use citysearch or google local.

Thank god for SP's and PIE. Now if I can just get my wife to use it vs dialing 411.

-Edgar_

Jerry Raia · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:39 am Post subject:

I refuse to use 411 on my phone.
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leslietroyer · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:44 am Post subject:

I'm constantly on my wife when the cell bill comes in. She will typically have 3-4 per month at $1.50 a pop. She usually tells it is money well spent as she was out and about, so couldn't get to her normal sources. She would never use google on her phone, but maybe I can get her to use the 800 #.

Thanks for the info.

Les

Edgar · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:46 am Post subject:

And neither do I.

But my wife (and it looks like Jason's also) don't seem to mind Sad

Mike Temporale · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:54 am Post subject:

You guys might want to try putting one of those 1-800's on speed dial. That might make it easier for your significant others to switch off 411.
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Mark Larson · Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:54 pm Post subject:

I've never used 411 - 3 or 4 calls can pay for an entire month's worth of data, which includes Google. Laughing

Of course, different people have different priorities - I know a lot of people wouldn't want to deal with the frustration of spending 5-10 minutes looking something up on a tiny screen whereas I don't mind.