Eircom no longer has to produce CD phone books

damien

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5213

10.08.2005 - Eircom is no longer required to make CD versions of telephone directories available to users as the designated universal service provider following a decision issued today by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
Eircom was required to make CD-Rom versions of telephone directories commercially available and to update these annually as part of the Universal Service Obligations imposed by ComReg in July 2003.

Eircom requested that ComReg remove this requirement and it demonstrated to the regulator that there was a virtual absence of consumer demand for the product.

The low demand was attributed to the availability of free web-based directory searches. As well as this there was an alternative commercially available CD-Rom marketeted in Ireland.

“In considering the Eircom request,” ComReg chairperson Isolde Goggin explained, “ComReg took into account the position of consumers who might wish to avail of a commercially available CD directory.

“ComReg is satisfied that those end-users who require such facilities can use the commercial offering available, or alternatively they could use one of the free online telephone directory services. In addition, the requirement on Eircom to provide directory enquiry services free of charge for people who may be unable to use the printed directory because of a disability is unaffected by today’s decision,” Goggin said.

By John Kennedy

Wonder what else eircom can say people don't want. Oh yeah, LLU. "Sure only 2000 people wanted it out of 1.7m lines, so we said we'd get rid."

Sponge Bob

it was an invisible product because eircom was marketing 11811 all the time .

where was it available from anyway , i have not seen that cd since the late 90's?

Urban Weigl

How about a proper online phone book? You know, one of those things developed countries have.

Solair

Not a big loss really. Their CD ROM phonebook was even more useless than their web phonebook.

Isn't phone book publishing sold off to the Golden Pages group now anyway ?

SparkyLarks

Urban Weigl wrote:

How about a proper online phone book? You know, one of those things developed countries have.

What's wrong with the one on eircom.ie??

paulm17781

goldenpages.ie is quite good although the search is a bit strict, doesn't handle spelling mistakes well at all.

Sponge Bob

SparkyLarks wrote:

What's wrong with the one on eircom.ie??

An Síne Fada mar shampla.

zippo22

SparkyLarks wrote:

What's wrong with the one on eircom.ie??

I have failing eyesight and have great difficulty using the phone book. I find the online directory a Godsend.

damien

But has anyone got the 2005 cd?

Sponge Bob

Comreg were sent the only copy for 'obvious' reasons

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

goldenpages.ie is quite good although the search is a bit strict, doesn't handle spelling mistakes well at all.

It's branded. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to go to eircom.ie. How about something generic, like phonebook.ie, without advertising?

jd

Urban Weigl wrote:

It's branded. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to go to eircom.ie. How about something generic, like phonebook.ie, without advertising?

In communist grey perhaps
How about
http://www.11850.ie for different branding ?


jd

Urban Weigl

jd wrote:

In communist grey perhaps
How about
http://www.11850.ie for different branding ?
jd

Dude, it doesn't have to be completely ad-free, just because it isn't laying on the corporate brand in generious doses. Take a look at for example http://tel.search.ch/ to see what I mean. They also let you do reverse lookups of telephone numbers, so if you just have the number you can find out the address and the person(s) it's is registered to.

I suppose what I'm after is for ComReg to mandate some kind of access to the telephone book that would allow a site like phonebook.ie, without it being associated with, for instance, Eircom. They're our telephone numbers, after all.

paulm17781

Urban Weigl wrote:

Dude, it doesn't have to be completely ad-free, just because it isn't laying on the corporate brand in generious doses. Take a look at for example http://tel.search.ch/ to see what I mean. They also let you do reverse lookups of telephone numbers, so if you just have the number you can find out the address and the person(s) it's is registered to.

I suppose what I'm after is for ComReg to mandate some kind of access to the telephone book that would allow a site like phonebook.ie, without it being associated with, for instance, Eircom. They're our telephone numbers, after all.

Oh no, branding. The corporations rule the earth etc... :rolleyes:

Reverse look up would be nice. AFAIK it is illegal in this country. There are many times I could have done with it thouge!

StonedParadoX

Urban Weigl wrote:

Dude, it doesn't have to be completely ad-free, just because it isn't laying on the corporate brand in generious doses. Take a look at for example http://tel.search.ch/ to see what I mean. They also let you do reverse lookups of telephone numbers, so if you just have the number you can find out the address and the person(s) it's is registered to.

I suppose what I'm after is for ComReg to mandate some kind of access to the telephone book that would allow a site like phonebook.ie, without it being associated with, for instance, Eircom. They're our telephone numbers, after all.

no there not we own jack **** there not our numbers at all

SparkyLarks

Eircom make a online phone book availible free to anyone who wqant's to use it. Why shouldn't they brand it.

If someone was to go off andmake a phone book.ie then they would probably be selling ad space on the website, that would be more annoying than branding.

Sponge BOB can't you just hold down alt Gr . that brings up a fada over the vowel does it not.

Iu've never had any issues with it it's always found any number i've been looking for.

Why do you need reverse lookup. If you know the number why not just ring and ask. Googling it works a lot too

Sponge Bob

reverse lookup is OK in countries that do not allow ex directory numbers...Italy is once such. It is not consistent with the right to be ex directory.

The Síne Fada issue is that it is currently technically impossible to consistently search for the correct spelling of an Irish name in the master phonebook for Ireland ....Gob****es. That would not happen in France or Germany where the accents and umlauts would no doubt be present and correct.

They even issued a recent Dublin phonebook without Fadas.

paulm17781

SparkyLarks wrote:

Why do you need reverse lookup. If you know the number why not just ring and ask. Googling it works a lot too

In an old job, I needed a shop name, had the address and phone number. No one was answering the phone so I tried 11811. They said they couldn't give this to me as I needed the shop name. I realised what a wonderful system this was that day! :rolleyes:

Urban Weigl

paulm17781 wrote:

Oh no, branding. The corporations rule the earth etc... :rolleyes:

Corporations are not evil, they just do what they are allowed to do, and have to make money for their shareholders. Give Shell for example. Nobody should be giving out to Shell, it's the government who gave them the license etc..

I am not saying that Eircom themselves should make a version of their online phonebook that isn't connected to their web site. I'm saying something along the lines of Comreg including in the USO that Eircom should release the phone book in a database form that would allow a site like phonebooks.ie to operate. And no, it doesn't have to be without ads. I just think this issue is somewhat similar to Eircom placing ads for 11811 in their network messages, for example voicemail or if an extension doesn't work anymore. It's also unfair to other operators.

damien

You could argue the same thing with OSI data. They built their maps using taxpayers money (I believe) and yet screw over the general public when they look for a map.

zippo22

Sponge Bob wrote:

reverse lookup is OK in countries that do not allow ex directory numbers...Italy is once such. It is not consistent with the right to be ex directory.

The Síne Fada issue is that it is currently technically impossible to consistently search for the correct spelling of an Irish name in the master phonebook for Ireland ....Gob****es. That would not happen in France or Germany where the accents and umlauts would no doubt be present and correct.

They even issued a recent Dublin phonebook without Fadas.

No doubt about it. It's a cruel and merciless world.

jd

damien.m wrote:

You could argue the same thing with OSI data. They built their maps using taxpayers money (I believe) and yet screw over the general public when they look for a map.

The govt /dept of finance wants them to generate revenue - so it is not so much OSI policy rather than government policy..
jd

Solair

Reverse look-ups would cause all sorts of weird complications under the data protection act in Ireland, that's why no one is allowed to provide such a facility and why eircom had to go to great lengths to ensure that it wasn't possible to hack the database on the CD ROM directory and start doing reverse look ups.

The only people allowed to do that are the Gardai!

There's a similar issue with Name + number display on caller ID. It is technically supported by the network but it's never been implemented as the data protection issues would require eircom to seek permission from each individual phone user and ensure that the data that they were sending on the caller ID was accurate all the time. The costs outweighted the benefits so it was never switched on.

Even when Caller ID launched there were hold ups due to Data Protection issues or at least perceived potential issues and concerns being raised by customers about privacy.

Sponge Bob

the holdup on caller ID deployment was designed to stmyie competition in the mid 1990s , the data protection commissioner cleared it in 1993 but eircom did not deploy it until early 1999

However digifone deployed in late 1996 or early 1997 with caller ID switched on so there was no data protection issue with caller ID by then ..... obviously

Solair

I don't see how caller ID could have possibly been anything to do with competition though... It's not a service that has any impact on competition in the market place really.

At the time TE had problems with data protection issues sorrounding caller ID most of which were created by paranoid legal people / managers within the organisation itself to be quite honest. They created a fuss about nothing basically as the vast majority of people welcomed the service.

There were some technical issues in the early roll out too and it wasn't really made available until all the digital exchanges were updated to support the service... (took a signfigant amount of work to enable it on every exchange... some of these units date back to 1981!)

To be fair to eircom, they're one of the few fixed line operators in the world that offers Caller ID universally and at no extra charge. Most charge a fairly signifigant fee. E.g. BT charges a quarterly fee for CLIP and cashes in on people who don't subscribe to it using it's 1471 call return service which is hardly used at all in Ireland.

I still don't understand why they haven't rolled out Caller ID on call waiting though. It's available in some places and not in others.. I've had incomming call waiting numbers displayed on my eircom 5012 in parts of cork, while the service is not advertised as existing and doesn't exist in most areas. I assume it's just another software/firmware update of some sort.