Blue pages are a telephone directory listing of American and Canadian state agencies, government agencies, federal government and other official entities, along with specific offices, departments, or bureaus located therein.
Canadian yellow-page listings indicated "Government Of Canada-See Government Listings In The Blue Pages"; in markets where the local telephone directory was a single volume, the blue pages and community information normally appeared after the alphabetical white-page listings but before the yellow pages advertising.[ citation needed ] The blue page listings included both provincial and federal entities. [1] The Canadian government ceased publishing phone numbers for each federal department in 2015, although individual provinces and municipalities continued to give local information. [2]
In the United States, the blue pages included state, federal, and local offices, [3] including service districts such as school districts, port authorities, public utility providers, parks districts, and fire districts.[ citation needed ] Starting in 1997, the blue pages also provided information about government services, in addition to officials' names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other contact information. [4] They were published either separately from the rest of the phone book, or consolidated into one volume, depending on the phone company and year. [5] However, some phone books misplaced government-run businesses like Amtrak outside of the Blue pages section. [6] The color blue is likely derived from so-called government blue books, official publications printed by a government (such as that of a state) describing its organization, and providing a list of contact information. (The blue pages published in a printed telephone directory is usually quite abridged, compared to official blue books).[ citation needed ]
The name "blue pages" has been used for various specialised directories by private-sector entities such as the internal IBM Staff directory. [7]
A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, or wiretapping is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and police investigations.
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal.
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products, subscriptions or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing.
A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory. Its purpose is to allow the telephone number of a subscriber identified by name and address to be found.
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the telephone country code 1. Some North American countries, most notably Mexico, do not participate with the NANP.
The Minitel, officially known as TELETEL, was an interactive videotex online service accessible through telephone lines. It was the world's first and most successful mass-market online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was developed in Cesson-Sévigné, Brittany, by government-owned France Télécom.
411 is a telephone number for local directory assistance in Canada and the United States. Until the early 1980s, 411 – and the related 113 number – were free to call in most jurisdictions.
211 is a special abbreviated telephone number reserved in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) as an easy-to-remember three-digit code to reach information and referral services to health, human, and social service organizations.
In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory inquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity.
A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, reachable by a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbering plans are defined in each of the administrative regions of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and in private telephone networks.
The yellow pages are telephone directories of businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings. The traditional term "yellow pages" is now also applied to online directories of businesses.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
Cold calling is the solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call. It is an attempt to convince potential customers to purchase the salesperson's product or service. Generally, it is an over-the-phone process, making it a form of telemarketing, but can also be done in-person by door-to-door salespeople. Though cold calling can be used as a legitimate business tool, scammers can use cold calling as well.
A reverse telephone directory is a collection of telephone numbers and associated customer details. However, unlike a standard telephone directory, where the user uses customer's details in order to retrieve the telephone number of that person or business, a reverse telephone directory allows users to search by a telephone service number in order to retrieve the customer details for that service.
In the United States, federal assistance, also known as federal aid, federal benefits, or federal funds, is defined as any federal program, project, service, or activity provided by the federal government that directly assists domestic governments, organizations, or individuals in the areas of education, health, public safety, public welfare, and public works, among others.
Electronic Yellow Pages are online versions of traditional printed business directories produced by telephone companies around the world. Typical functionalities of online yellow pages include the alphabetical listings of businesses and search functionality of the business database by name, business or location. Since Electronic Yellow Pages are not limited by space considerations, they often contain far more comprehensive business information such as vicinity maps, company profiles, product information, and more.
Telephone numbers in the Philippines follow an open telephone numbering plan and an open dial plan. Both plans are regulated by the National Telecommunications Commission, an attached agency under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
The regulation of telephone numbers in Germany is the responsibility of the Federal Network Agency of the German government. The agency has a mandate to telecommunications in Germany and other infrastructure systems.
A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices for data transmission via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), or other public and private networks. Modern smart phones have added a built-in layer of abstraction whereby individuals or businesses are saved into a contacts application and the numbers no longer have to be written down or memorized.
YellowPagesDirectory.com is a national online telephone number and street address directory, containing Yellow Pages and White Pages throughout the United States. Formerly known as YellowPagesGoesGreen.org, YellowPagesDirectory.com is owned and operated by Yellow Pages Directory Inc., which is headquartered in Manhattan, NY. The website was originally launched in 2010 by a private owner and was soon acquired by Yellow Pages Directory Inc. In addition to telephone and street address listings, the website also has informational blog articles, in addition to being outspoken advocates of opting-out of traditional print telephone directory home delivery.