Ruling lets white pages fade to black

Frontier’s request to end telephone directory accepted

Frontier Communications will be allowed to cease blanket distribution of the white pages in Connecticut, where the first-ever telephone directory was set on cardboard in the 19th century.

Frontier is based in Norwalk and runs its eastern operations from New Haven, with the company among the larger telecommunications providers in the country. As the incumbent telephone company owning the historic Southern New England Telephone, Frontier is subject to oversight of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

PURA signaled this week its readiness to accept a Frontier request made last June to end its annual mailing of the white pages, noting the increased use of online directories and the amount of paper waste and expense created in producing the directories. Frontier entered 2018 with just over 470,000 telephone accounts in Connecticut, with the company recording a $404 million loss on its operations in the state last year.

Under a publishing agreement with Vivial, Frontier has maintained three directories covering southwestern Connecticut and the Hartford and New London regions. Frontier subscribers can still order directories online at no cost or through a toll-free number, though PURA faulted the company for furnishing customers and other telephone providers an apparently inaccurate website address for customers to order directories, with the working website online at http:// directory.frontierlocalguide.com.

In May, Frontier asked PURA for permission to cease automatic distribution of the New London directory. Frontier stated that Connecticut residents opt out of receiving the directories at a rate 15 times higher than the average in other states, and cited a 2014 study that suggested just six in every 100 households or businesses use the white pages regularly to find telephone numbers. Frontier had applied to New York regulators in April 2017 for a similar OK.

In its PURA negotiations, Frontier indicated the white pages amount to digital-era dinosaurs today, with wireless, cable and internet-telephone providers not furnishing numbers for their subscribers for inclusion in the books.

Stamford-based Charter Communications had interceded in the PURA deliberations to ensure, among other points, that it could still forward its Spectrum telephone listings to Frontier for inclusion in the white pages.

New Haven was home to the first telephone directory in U.S. history, published on a cardboard sheet on Feb. 21, 1878, and listing about 50 households and businesses that had installed telephones.

Alexander Soule / Hearst Connecticut Media A Frontier Communications coin pay phone. In 2017, after asking New York regulators for permission to end blanket distribution of telephone books in New York. Connecticut regulators signaled plans entering this month to follow suit.

Alexander Soule / Hearst Connecticut Media The white pages and shopping guide for Fairfield and New Haven counties published by Norwalk-based Frontier Communications.