Directory assistance
Directory assistance systems incorporate a wide range of automation to reduce the cost of human operators.
This frees the directory assistance operator to move on to another caller as soon as the correct listing is located.
If confidence is low, the caller's request is played back to a live operator, who locates the correct listing.
[citation needed] In the North American Numbering Plan (covering Canada, the United States, and parts of the Caribbean), directory assistance may be contacted by dialing 411 (one of the N11 codes).
Historically, the tariffs for wireline telephone service allowed subscribers to place a certain number of directory assistance calls for free each month.
[citation needed] U.S. wireline telephone companies classify DA into four rate classes: In the U.S., directory assistance for companies with toll-free "800 numbers" (with area codes 800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, and 888) was available from toll-free directory assistance, reachable by dialing 1-800-555-1212, for many decades until it was discontinued in 2020.
[citation needed] The service of 411 queries is often outsourced to a call centre that specializes in that function.
Other operator-assist directory services do exist, for example, CallConnect on 12456; however, these numbers are not guaranteed to be accessible from all phone providers within Australia.
Support for 192 and 153 was replaced on 24 August 2003 by competitive directory inquiries services using different numbers beginning "118".
[11] The applicable service charge codes are also shown in BT's pricing table, section 2, part 15.
[13] Following criticism of very high and increasing charges for DQ services, Ofcom introduced a price cap to 2013 levels from 1 April 2019.
[14] 118 800 proved to be controversial, however, when it was revealed that it was making available 15 million mobile numbers that it had bought from market researchers.
[15] Its website was suspended[16] within weeks of its launch so that the company could re-engineer the site to enable the large number of ex-directory requests to be handled more efficiently.
[citation needed] Later in 2014, a similar failure to clearly state call costs resulted in a fine for the 118118 service.
[citation needed] Some[vague] services donate part of their income to charities, such as animal welfare and football clubs[failed verification].
[21] Teleoperators in Finland are legally obligated to ensure their users' names, addresses, and telephone numbers are collected and published in a telephone directory, and to, for their part, ensure their users have access to a directory inquiry service.
[22] In practice, teleoperators hand telephone subscriptions' contact information to Suomen Numeropalvelu Oy, which forms and relays a number database to various directory assistance private companies.
