Govt to set up enquiries number for directory enquiries
The United Kingdom government yesterday announced that it is setting up a national hotline number to help people who are unable to deal with the switch to multi-pole privatized directory services.
Two months ago the UK government scrapped a national directory enquiries number, 192, replacing it with 21 new numbers all beginning with 118 and run by various private ventures at different tariffs.
Today’s decision comes in response to a report published this week by the household bills comparison service uSwitch.com claiming that 62% of people are still confused about the new services and that a majority would prefer a return to the old 192 number.
The new national hotline will be run by British Telecom on behalf of the UK government and will essentially provide callers with a list of directory services and tariff options.
The number retained for the new "DEDES" hotline (Directory Enquiries Directory Enquiries Service) will be officially announced on Monday, but BIGfib can reveal that the initial number retained by the government for the service is 192.
