Date: Sun, 08 Nov 92 10:33:54 -0500
From: clements@BBN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Phone Directory on CD
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 832, Message 7 of 12

[Re: questions about the Phone Directory on CD from DAK]

I've been meaning to answer this from home, where I could get the
details right by checking the disks, but I keep forgetting.  So this
answer is being composed at work, from memory, and may have some
errors in the details.

First I'll say that, like many, I'm uneasy about having all the phone
directories easily and cheaply available to every telemarketer with a
PC.  But that battle has been lost.  So, with some distaste, I decided
to order these CDs and see what was on them and whether I could find
some old lost friends, like the ad says.  I'll try to answer the
questions that have been posted.

jongsma@swdev.si.com (Ken Jongsma) writes:

> One usually associates DAK with closeout merchandise. Perhaps the
> listings are a bit out of date?

I was wondering about this, too.  The CD labels say "Winter 1991"
which, I think, is the winter at the BEGINNING of 1991.  That is
supported by the presence of some business listings for small
companies in this area that fell victim to the recession.  And as
philip@cgin.cto.citicorp.com (Philip Gladstone) says, the listings
seem to be somewhat older than the date on the label.  So yes, I think
these are old stock being sold off cheap.

rothman@tegra.com (Steve Rothman) writes:

> Do these new telephone listing CD-ROMs contain addresses, as well as
> names and phone numbers? Can they be searched by phone number (and
> address, if contained), or just by name?

Yes, they contain name, phone number and address.  The BUSINESS disk
also contains a code for the category of the business.  The BUSINESS
disk can be searched by any of the fields, and the search can be
limited to particular areas, and can be set to exclude certain areas.
The example in the manual is to search NYC but exclude addresses with
"Bronx" in them.  You can search by phone number.  I looked at the
block of 7500 DID numbers for my work address, to see how many had
published listings, for example.

The RESIDENTIAL disks have a more limited user interface.  You can
only search by name, though you can limit the search to a particular
state or area code or phone exchange.  But they're always sorted by
name.  So you can't search by phone number but you can limit it to the
exchange and then visually scan through a thousand listings.  Not too
great.

Now how good is the data?

There are an amazing number of errors and omissions.  Some examples:

I was wondering whether my old address and numbers would be listed or
my new ones, since I moved at the end of "Winter 1991".  The answer is
that neither was listed.  I'm not on the disk at all, even though I
had three listed lines at the old house and one at the new house.

My parents in Wisconsin are listed by name and address but the phone
number is missing.  (Many listings are like that.)  But their phone
number has been listed and unchanged for over 25 years.

There are lots of impossible numbers listed.  For example, on the
business disk (which can be searched by phone number) a few are listed
in area code 911!  And a dozen or so are listed in area code 710 (the
strange secret area code we discussed here a while back).  But looking
at those listings, they are obviously typos or scanning errors, since
they are geographically in a few specific places with similar area
codes and are completely ordinary small businesses.

In the search of our DID numbers mentioned above, I found a bunch of
errors:

[Background: You have to know that before the 617/508 split most (but
not all) of the 617-87x exchanges were in Framingham MA, which is now
in 508.  617-873 did not exist until it was created for us, in
Cambridge, which stayed in 617.]

Now on the business disk there are a number of 617-873 listings which
claim to be in Framingham.  So not only are they typos for some other
87x-nnnn but they are in the wrong area code for Framingham.  On the
other hand, there are some listings shown in 508-873, too, and that
exchange doesn't exist at all.

In general, I've found a pretty poor percentage of the people and
companies that I've looked for.

I was surprised to see a large number of business listings on my
completely residential street.  Must be a lot of basement/garage
shops.  I'm not implying that these are errors, though. They're
probably real.

So I'd say these disks are not worth their price to an individual.
They're probably just fine for a telemarketer who doesn't really care
if all the numbers are correct and just wants to be right most of the
time when he/she says "Good evening Mr. Smith.  How are you today?"
Sigh ...


Bob Clements, K1BC, clements@bbn.com