Financial Times

SLT promises more informative telephone directory
Fancy leafing through 3,760 pages of a telephone directory to find the number of a friend in Medawachchiya or a business contact in Batticaloa?
That would be the number of pages of the Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) directory if the state-controlled company chose to print all the sections and bind them into one book.

“We want to make it easier and simpler to the subscriber,” said L.P.M. P. Balapitiya, SLT’s Head of Division/Directory Services, while showing reporters recently a sample of the bulky volume – containing telephone numbers of SLT’s 940,000 subscribers across the island, business sections and advertisements – which would be quite a task to locate a telephone number of a contact, friend or relative.

The number of SLT customers has risen from 20,000 in 1983 while the number pages of the telephone directory has risen from 280 pages in the same year.
The directory in recent years has been broken into different sections like the western province directory, regional directories and the rainbow Pages which is the business section. The last section, SLT says, is the no.1 business directory as it also accommodates other operators’ telephone numbers as well. “A SLT subscriber can incorporate the telephone numbers of the other operators as well as the email address. He or she can also list educational qualifications,” Balapitiya said.

A proposal last year by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority for a common national directory or for directories of national telecom operators to contain telephone numbers of other phone companies - like what SLT is doing right now - didn’t get off the ground.

In continuing efforts to improve the national telephone directory, SLT also plans to include information useful to society like for example how and from where to obtain a driving license or a passport. This public information section will expand in the coming years.

While copies of the new directory have been sent to subscribers, SLT said it was re-activating its distribution from last week for those who have not received a free copy. Balapitiya said the directory was too bulky to be delivered by the regular postman and could be collected from SLT outlets or Cargills Food City supermarkets.

SLT officials were asked the perennial question that subscribers have found no answer in the past several years: How does a Colombo subscriber get the telephone number of an outstation subscriber or vice versa when one is entitled only to the directory of the region where the subscriber lives?
Officials said the only way possible was publishing the bulky, single directory but added that this is not a viable option which would also not be welcomed by subscribers. Instead there are SLT hotlines – soon toll (free) numbers -- which provide fast information on any subscriber.

The SLT website www.slt.lk also provides all subscriber numbers and other information while all information is also available on CD from SLT outlets. Directories of other regions – for those who require numbers outside their region – are also available for a fee.

Each provincial customer will receive one directory relevant to his/her province. In the case of additional directories, a western province customer in one district is entitled to a free directory of other districts in the same province. In the case of others, any customer can request the directory of other provinces (except Western Province) which will be issued to them at no cost.

SLT says it has as much as possible responded to customers complaints or requests to simplify the process of searching for a number. However a reporter pointed a flaw in the directory last year where it was found to be difficult to quickly find the number of a minister or ministry if there were many subjects attached.

For example if an important ministry like telecommunications or health is attached at the end of a long list of subjects under that particular ministry, looking up under T or H or telecommunication or health would draw a blank. Looking for Mahaweli Development in the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment, Irrigation and Mahaweli Development is a good example and would mean going over the government section several times to find this – because that would come under A (Agriculture).

SLT officials acknowledged this weakness and promised to rectify it in the future with an easier reference index. The company says there are over 1000 classifications and over 12,000 listings in the Rainbow Pages (Western Province edition).

The provincial Rainbow Pages will contain business listings of companies/firms/organisations of each region.

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