Scoot.com plc has announced that it will be
offering a free directory enquiry service via its
scoot.co.uk Web site,
beginning June 28. Users who register will
receive all business and residential enquiries free of
charge.
Although full details were not revealed, Scoot said that
a “powerful organisation” has agreed in principle to
sponsor the site as part of the new service.
Every year in the UK, people make over 700 million directory
enquiries, many of them business enquiries that overlap with
Scoot’s traditional service. Eventually, said the publisher,
the Scoot service and the new directory enquiries product
will be fully integrated.
Currently, BT charges users 35p (56 cents) for calls to its
UK directory enquiries service, although
anyone may ask for two numbers on one call. To get the BT
service for free, users need to be registered as being blind
or disabled. BT’s international directory enquiries (dial 153
in the UK) costs 80p ($1.28) per call, and it gets billed
even if the operator cannot find the number.
