I just thought I would plug the following DQ providers, specified as being the ‘best value for money’ in Ofcom’s recent report (see Section 5.9):

Use them - get the benefits of competition.

I’ve read a few pieces of commentary about Ofcom’s report, claiming that competition might not be the best thing for the Directory Enquiries market. Well, according to Ofcom, these two providers are offering better / cheaper services. Funny, that piece of news is buried in the Ofcom report, and not highlighted on the Consumer Panel’s website. Other consumer organisations are completely asleep behind the wheel on this issue. I checked one prominent consumer organisation’s website this morning and searched on: 118, 192, DQ, directory enquiry, etc. - nothing…

And the bigger picture? Maybe ‘numbers’ aren’t the future anyway. Check-out James Enck’s Eurotelcoblog and follow his posts on Skype, some of which you will find re-posted here on OfcomWatch. Skype and similar technologies (eg, Yahoo IM) use buddy and contact lists. If you are already on-line and need a ‘real’ number, of course, you only need Google - it’s free of course. So, we always end-up coming back to the same overall solution - increasing (competitive) broadband roll-out and subscription.

Anyway, I just thought our readers would appreciate a perspective other than ‘the DQ fiasco’ items I am reading everywhere else. There are now more ways than ever before to find out how to reach someone electronically. Competition is working.