Car-Phone Users Get a Rolling Yellow Pages
In the most substantial foray yet by a Baby Bell regional phone company into the information services business, a unit of Pacific Telesis on Monday launched an information referral service for certain mobile-phone users here.
Traffic escape routes, current stock market indicators, restaurant reservations and other information can be obtained through the service offered by PacTel Cellular, a unit of San Francisco-based Pacific Telesis and sister company of Pacific Bell.
The move came less than a month after the U.S. Court of Appeals lifted an order banning regional phone companies from providing information services. That ruling has led to protests from cable television firms, newspapers and other information services companies concerned about what they contend would be unfair competition from Baby Bells such as Pacific Telesis.
The system--roughly the equivalent of a rolling yellow pages--imposes no additional charge to callers, who gain access to 280 vendors and services listed in the system. Subscriber companies pay PacTel $100 to $300 for each listing. Callers are charged normal on-line phone fees.
The service is tailored to mobile-phone users, taking into account the proclivities of the cellular set--high-tech, high-income people intimate with the ways of phone and facsimile machines, said Doron Lurie, director of sales and marketing at PacTel Cellular.
PacTel began focusing on the information service field about one year ago, when the lifting of the ban on information dispensing appeared imminent, Lurie said.
Private information companies have been offering many of the services now available through PacTel, which is banking on the centralized directory approach to increase the on-line time of current mobile-phone subscribers and to attract new users.
As the company began actively developing technology for the system, it gauged cellular phone users’ willingness to pay higher bills in exchange for convenience. The average PacTel subscriber in San Diego paid an $85 monthly bill last year, Lurie said. He declined to say how much money PacTel invested to develop the system.
Current users were also surveyed on what information would most interest them.
Categories named most often: personalized traffic reports, financial listings, restaurant descriptions, sports scores and entertainment listings, Lurie said.
By 5 p.m. Monday, the first day of use, the system received more than 200 calls, PacTel said.
San Diego was chosen as the first area to receive the service because of a high concentration of mobile-phone users--about three times the national average of 1.1% of the population.
Also compared to other major PacTel markets, San Diego has a higher concentration of “service-oriented businesses” that are more likely to advertise through a cellular directory, Lurie said.
“We operate in a number of regions. San Diego is one of the more controllable markets,” Lurie said. “The number of customers and the number of potential businesses to be listed are not as intimidating as, say, in Los Angeles. For experimenting, San Diego is a little easier to get your arms around.”
In San Diego there are about 80,000 cellular phone users, 50,000 of whom are PacTel customers. The remainder subscribe to US West, a private cellular phone service.
A spokeswoman for US West said it is developing a similar information system. She did not have an estimate on when the service would be available.
