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I meant more why this kind of directory lost coverage overall as cell phones came in. Maybe it was just really that unpopular to have the name, address & numbe
by foobarian 5y ago
I meant more why this kind of directory lost coverage overall as cell phones came in. Maybe it was just really that unpopular to have the name, address & number be public by default.
- ghaff 5y agoI don't know the history of why there was never a cellphone directory. There was never a monopoly controlling all those numbers for one thing as was originally the case with landlines--and regional monopolies after the Bell breakup. I also suspect that by the time cellphones got big, the public overall wouldn't have been big on cellphones numbers being listed.
- foobarian 5y agoAround that time frame is also when spamming picked up quite a bit, while at the same time early mobile plans rarely had unlimited talk time making the spam particularly costly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 5y agoMost people's early mobile plans were very limited, the person receiving the call paid for it in the US, and costs were even higher for calls that weren't from your immediate local area. And, as you say, junk landline calls were becoming a bigger deal. This old article https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/06/why-isn-t-there-a-cell-phone-directory.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/06/why-isn-t-there-... claims that the wireless carriers didn't want to put out a directory because consumers would be upset if they had to pay for junk calls.