Telstra’s decision to charge business and mobile phone users for directory assistance has caused outrage among some business groups and fear among consumers that the next step is to charge residential users for the service.
The outrage and fear about the end of the “”free” service are misplaced. At the end of the financial year nothing is “”free”. At best there is a bit of cross-subsidisation where one group of users pay for the services given to other groups of users. But worse than that, if something is notionally charged as “”free” consumers flock to it, over-use it and abuse it.
Telstra says the service costs something like $200 million a year to run. Inevitably that cost is passed on to all telephone users. Hit with a 50 cent fee, many customers would think twice before opting for directory assistance. Mobile-phone users, particularly, would be more likely to carry updated contact books so they did get hit with the fee. So the cost of running the service would fall and the savings passed on to all, including pensioners, the disabled and all the people who imagine they are getting a “””free” directory service.
Telstra also argues that many directory users do not bother checking the white pages first and most of the inquiries are for local numbers. These people are swamping the service to the detriment of other users.
The trick for Telstra would be to give everyone a discount on their phone bill of the equivalent of, say, 50 calls a year at 50c each, and then charge for each and every directory assistance call. The costs of running the service would plummet as lazy abusers of the “”free” service got their numbers through other means (phonebooks, their own contact books and the internet) and everyone would have cheaper services.
The “”free” service is a costly illusion.