new phone book, woooo hoooo

mukki

delighted to say i got my new 046 phone book, and golden pages today

I put them in the top drawer in the locker under the phone, oooooooh hang there is last years and its still looking brand new

i always prefered this....

http://www.eircomphonebook.ie/


whats the point of sending the phone book out to every house every year?

Archeron

I agree, its an awful waste. Between the various online phone books and our friend google, I havent picked up a paper directory in years.

Cabaal

not everybody has a pc and/or internet access.

None the less I think perhaps they should stop sending them to everybody and instead only send them out on request

probe

And only 16% of people have broadband in IRL – expecting people to set-up a dial-up connection to lookup a phone number is expecting a bit much. Of course eircom have no control over this :-)

Anyway the www.eircomphonebook.ie is not a replacement for the printed document. Look up the number of a large company online, and one often has to wade through masses of irrelevant options to find the required number - eg their one day a week sub office in Adrigole comes up first, rather than their main contact centre number which appears after scrolling through to page 5.

Chez moi one gets a letter from the telco advising that the new phone book has been published and will be available at the local post office, upon presentation of the enclosed collection authorization card, up to a specified date (they generally give about two months to pick up a phone book). They also offer the option of having the phone books delivered for a €10 fee.

I suspect that this process eliminates the distribution of unwanted phonebooks. Most people who have broadband probably don’t bother getting a phone book. I didn't bother picking up phone books this year.

There is a phonebook only recycling skip outside every post office during the two month new book collection period where one can dispose of the old book en route to collect the new one. And one is reminded on the card to bring one’s old phonebook with one when collecting the new one.

The system saves wasted energy in distribution of phonebooks, labour costs, and waste of paper raw materials and encourages recycling of a very recyclable product.

.probe

Archeron

probe wrote:

I didn't bother picking up phone books this year.

I agree that some people need them, but I have never heard of people picking them up. is that from the post office itself? Phone books are automatically delivered to my house when they are printed, and we never use them. Similar in my job, we had about 15 golden pages delivered, and one would easily do us.

dudara

There are 9 flats where I live, and AFAIK, only one has a phone line installed. Yet we received 9 copies of the 01 phone book and golden pages. What a waste.

probe

Archeron wrote:

I agree that some people need them, but I have never heard of people picking them up. is that from the post office itself? Phone books are automatically delivered to my house when they are printed, and we never use them. Similar in my job, we had about 15 golden pages delivered, and one would easily do us.

Yes it is from the post office itself (La Poste, rather than An Post). The telco outsources the physical distribution process to them. If you request delivery of your phone book, it is delivered by a electrically powered vehicle!

No doubt eircom is under some regulatory obligation to spew phone books all over Ireland created by the brain dead ComReg regulatory hackers, who still seem to have the old Dept of P&T pre-broadband mindset. The same regulator that presides over eircom's highest price phone lines and slowest DSL broadband monopoly in Europe. The same regulator that lets eircom continue to maintain its 96% market share grip on the DSL broadband market in Ireland.

When you enjoy a virtually unregulated monopoly (such as eircom/ComReg), nobody cares about costs or efficiency or waste of resources. The sucker consumers of Ireland are paying for it.

All the responsibility of www.dcmnr.gov.ie!

.probe

Del2005

I doubt it's eircom or com reg. Don't forget the golden pages is a commercail operation that has paying customers. If they say they have a copy in every house in the country they can charge more per ad then if they only deliver to people who request it. And I'm sure part of the reason why companies advertise in the golden pages is for country wide coverage. The phone book is just thrown in to stop people complaining about junk mail, which the golden pages technically is.

Also, I know a lot of people who don't/can't use the internet so using the online option is not going to happen. I also find that the online phone book isn't very user friendly, I think they do it on purpose to force people to the phone book they delivered:D

probe

Del2005 wrote:

I doubt it's eircom or com reg.

Direction 2 of ComReg Decision Notice 17/03, which deals with the Universal Service Obligation (USO) imposed on eircom, requires eircom to provide a comprehensive directory of telephone subscribers to all end-users in printed format .... and for each directory to be updated at least annually.

.probe

Cabaal

probe wrote:

Direction 2 of ComReg Decision Notice 17/03, which deals with the Universal Service Obligation (USO) imposed on eircom, requires eircom to provide a comprehensive directory of telephone subscribers to all end-users in printed format .... and for each directory to be updated at least annually.

.probe

Make them available but there's no need to send them to every household in the country especially when alto of people don't use them anymore...between 11811, 11850 and on-line directorys not many people use phonebooks anymore, atleast from my experience

Antenna

dudara wrote: »

There are 9 flats where I live, and AFAIK, only one has a phone line installed. Yet we received 9 copies of the 01 phone book and golden pages. What a waste.

But its a fair bet the other 8 flats all have a mobile phone, and so are likely to want a phone book. Even someone without any phone, probably has a need of a phone book, as one is hard pressed to find a phonebook nowadays at a public phone!

The majority of people still want a printed directory.
That said I agree there is waste, in deliveries to unoccupied addresses etc.

BTW
If one is getting rid of last year's phone book, spare a thought for a friend/relation/work colleague residing in another area who will take it off you. Someone just outside the 01 area in the counties surrounding Dublin will probably gladly take last year's 01 book off you. Or for example someone in Charleville Co. Cork (which is in the 06* area), will I expect like to have last year's 02* phone book (most of the rest of Co. Cork.) also.

Archeron

Antenna wrote: »

BTW
If one is getting rid of last year's phone book, spare a thought for a friend/relation/work colleague residing in another area who will take it off you. Someone just outside the 01 area in the counties surrounding Dublin will probably gladly take last year's 01 book off you. Or for example someone in Charleville Co. Cork (which is in the 06* area), will I expect like to have last year's 02* phone book (most of the rest of Co. Cork.) also.

thats a good point. I live in 01, but the last edition of the 021/046/049 directories would be handy. Hmmmmmm.

cazzy

I live in an apartment block and there is some nice soppy wet phone books outside under the mail boxes where they have been for the last few weeks.
A real waste of trees.

Wertz

I can recall back to the days that we had no phone in the house....but there was always a phonebook delivered every year. Just because you didn't have a phone didn't mean you didn't need a phonebook.
I agree that it's wasteful to some extent in this more modern age...but alterntaives like online or PAID FOR directory enquiries aren't really fair on the less well-off or non-technical people who are just as entitled to call someone as anyone else...

A bit of common sense wouldn't go atsray here....how about a system where [whoever] sends you out a postcard asking whether you would like a copy of this year's local directory....if you don't send it back they presume No and the waste is reduced.
Golden pages as mentioned is a different story, since they're an advertisement service.

As far as waste goes, sunday papers are a MUCH bigger waste of paper than a 400 page phone directory, both in terms of logistics and when it comes to actual physical waste of paper...

probe

cazzy wrote: »

I live in an apartment block and there is some nice soppy wet phone books outside under the mail boxes where they have been for the last few weeks.
A real waste of trees.

No doubt badly packed in cheap, thin plastic, guaranteed to leak during the delivery process if it is raining and the householders are out of town. Eircom is a backstreet, third rate phone company who gets away with charging the highest prices for the slowest broadband in Europe. They can't even deliver a phonebook without screwing up the exercise.

Yet another reason for people to receive mailings inviting them to pick up their phone book from their local post office (allowing a period of perhaps two months to do same). A soggy phone book with dozens of pages stuck together after a good rainfall soaking is useless.

One could go on....

In the 2008 eircom phonebook, there are still references to (a) "East Germany" (Halle) - Germany has been unified for 15 years, and (b) they still show "area codes" (ie NDCs) for France, Spain, Italy - countries that modernised their numbering plan to remove "area codes" completely over the past 5 years. A confusing, confused, incompetent, over-borrowed, incompetently run monopoly that retains a 96% market share grip on the DSL broadband market due to government incompetence and an ineffective regulatory process.

.probe