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Wireless Carriers Try to Stay Competitive in Crowded 411 Market

7:00 am on March 10, 2006 | Category: Business, Mobile Devices, Telecom Services

Wireless carriers are coming to the realization that they need to invest more effort into enhancing their in-house directory assistance services.

American cell phone providers make about $8 billion per year from their 411 directory assistance offerings, but this market is becoming more crowded with numerous free alternatives surfacing. These include toll-free 1-800 services, as well as SMS-based offerings, including one from Google.

Now the major wireless carriers are beginning to fight back by combining 411 with a variety of new and innovative applications. Plans are being made to add sports scores and stock prices as a bonus to the overall package, as well as providing location-based 411 applications to users with GPS-enabled phones.

Although providers will undoubtedly have a tough road ahead of them competing against services like Google Local, the fact that they are trying to enrich basic 411 shows that they are clearly motivated to preserve a portion of the directory assistance market for themselves.

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