The plop of phone books dropped at front doors across Chattanooga last week was a little softer than normal.
The AT&T Yellow Pages directory shipped without residential phone listings for the first time in Chattanooga this year, a money-saving trend offering customers choices – a full print directory with residential numbers may still be ordered at no charge – and slashing paper and ink consumption.
Yellow Book, a competitor to the AT&T Yellow Pages in the area, already publishes without residential white pages. The Yellow Book directory, which comes out in November, recently shrank from a four-column to a proportionately smaller three-column format, said company spokeswoman Maria Mitchell.
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As more telephone users migrate to unlisted mobile numbers, residential listings have become incomplete and, without cell phone listings, less relevant, according to Negley Norton, president of Local Search Association, the former Yellow Pages Association. The same can’t be said for the business directory or Yellow Page section, which often remain tied to land lines in office spaces.