back to article BT backs down from charging millions in phone book listing fees

BT has quietly withdrawn its threat to charge communications providers millions in six years' worth of back bills for special-entry listings in its phone book. Providers faced unexpected bills of up to £30,000 for customers, such as high street shops, taking out the special ads in the BT Phone Book – i.e. having a box around …

  1. mark l 2 Silver badge

    They still have paper phone books?

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      They still have paper phone books?

      Indeed. I get a new phone book delivered to my door once a year. This delivery prompts me into my routine of putting the old one in the recycling bin. and putting the new one in its place on the shelf where it will remain untouched until it, in turn, gets replaced.

      1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

        Keep the old ones! They will be worth money to the antique stores and ebays of the future...

        1. John Riddoch

          I used to do that. Now I bypass the "sitting on the shelf" bit as any time I need a number, I just look it up online.

        2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

          Indeed, many antique stores don't just have tables with different length legs, they also have uneven floors. Sometimes this evens out, sometimes not. So, a well-placed book...

      2. The Nazz
        FAIL

        Indeed they do, but mine goes straight into the recycle bin.

        The reason being, i used to get the book for the town i live, work and shop in. With the correct STD code. And use it a few times a year.

        Then for some inexplicable reason, next years book arrived for a town around ten miles away and has done ever since. Useless.

        Still, never mind. The original issue and indeed the recycling are all part of the GDP (presumably) and the "growth" that the country has achieved. Someone somewhere thinks it's a progressive change.

        All's good.

      3. HmmmYes

        Im much more efficient.

        I put the new one straight into recycling.

    2. Christoph

      I may still have somewhere a set of 4 phone books that covered all of London. (Divided alphabetically.)

      These days the slim volume that gets delivered and promptly recycled covers about as far as the range you could get with two tin cans and some string.

      They used to be of some use, in finding addresses. But then they removed the postcode area/town name from the address, so you only got the street name and house number.

      Not as bad as the yellow pages though. The (again much smaller) book is now a long list of category names nearly all of which redirect to other category names. Scattered in there are a very few adverts and a very few actual entries. Presumably they are mostly online now. Possibly they have long term contracts to put entries in the physical edition and so must still produce it and distribute it even though it's of effectively no use whatever?

    3. jelabarre59

      They still have paper phone books?

      Absolutely. And with the state of online phone directories, and internet lag times, the paper phone books are still quicker and more reliable to use.

      Only problem is now they've taken to printing them in 3-point type.

      1. Commswonk

        :@ jalabarre: And with the state of online phone directories, and internet lag times, the paper phone books are still quicker and more reliable to use.

        Eh? Are you in the UK or elsewhere? Not least because of the 3 point type to which you subsequently referred I rarely use the printed phone book. My experience with BT's on - line directory is entirely satisfactory; on one occasion I was able to tell one of my wife's friends what her number was going to be when she moved house a couple of days later (she had not been advised by BT) and on another some acquaintances who relocated had their new number available on - line within about a week; should I have waited perhaps 12 months until a new directory had plonked through the letter box? A paper directory is utterly useless if you don't actually have it, such as one for outside the area in which you reside.

        And what is an "internet lag time"? I know some people justifiably complain about under 1 Mb/s speeds but even that ought to be enough to look up a phone number. Perhaps it is something else entirely, in which case please tell me what it is.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > internet lag times

        Google comes back with a full address and phone number for any business in <1 second

        Are you dialing from 1992?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paper phone books are definitely still a thing, although they are much smaller than they ever used to be. The old feat of strength of tearing a telephone directory in half is starting to look more achievable for me - if they keep shrinking at their current rate, then I might just have it cracked around 2025.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      In an old job in the 90s, my monitor sat on the yellow pages - as it was the right height to make it possible for me to be able to read it comfortably. We had flat desks, without keboard trays and my reading glasses are short range. The company were too cheap to get me a monitor stand.

      Every couple of days I'd have to lift my monitor up, so somebody could look up a number.

      Which is funny, because at the time our biggest customer were Scoot - the directory enquiries thing that so far as I can remember burned through its investors cash for well over a decade, before finally going belly-up, sometime last decade. They were a bit before BT were forced to change it from 192, and allow competition (and shit adverts) - but had managed to get 0800 192192. Not that it did them any good...

  3. x 7

    they make good emergency loo paper

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Joke

      Well as the paper Yellow Pages in the UK will cease publication soon, I guess that's one way of upholding the tradition

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Our company was and is still affected by a scam which revolves around the phone book. A third party registered a semi-premium rate number and redirected it to our company. This then appears in the phone book. However it was nothing to do with us and we can't get it removed - When you try to find out the person who owns the number you go through reseller who licenced it to reseller who licenced it to reseller etc etc etc forever more.

    The phone book will not remove it because they can't without the third party agreeing and they can't say who that is, ofcom won't help, phonepay plus or whatever they are called now can't help.

    So we just let it go expecting someone to report us to ofcom at some point (due to not having the legal messages when people call) and then we could explain the situation and let ofcom sort it out, but alas no-one did and now no-one uses the phonebook anyway so it is not an issue.

  5. David Gosnell

    Typical BT

    To make up for delayed death, screw over the blindly loyal or inertia-bound even more for the privilege, as with their phone lines.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ok I'm a bit confused. Did BT forget to bill them or did BT bill them and they did not pat and just now are going after them?

    1. Notas Badoff

      Not so fast

      Heck, I'm still trying to figure out this conjunction: "six years' worth of back bills" and "We proactively contacted the communications providers affected to advise them of the issue, ..."

      If "six years" is 'proactive' I guess BT do have another scale of time they call 'effective'.

  7. DougW
    Pint

    101 uses for a phone book

    We here on the other side of the pond get more than just one "yellow pages" or phone book. A seemingly endless parade of phone books passes between my mailbox and recycle bin each year.

    Honestly, the last time I used the local telephone provider AT&T phone book it was to prop open the back door.

  8. ruscook

    Waste of paper

    I haven't used one for over 10, maybe 15 years. I filled in a form to say don't send me a phone book. Haven't had one from Telstra since. Still get a local private pink pages book every couple of years.

    I did work with family friends as a teen in the 1970's helping them deliver the local phone book. They won the contract.

    Got customer name/number and address cards in number order. Had to sort them in to address order, do the deliveries street by street and sort them back to number order for the phone company. About 15000 for the local town then. Can't remember what they got paid.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A what?

    Is this 1973?

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