Yes, you read it right. If required, you can again, search for your friend or relative just by opening up a directory as you used to do about 8-10 years back for searching landline numbers. But the difference would be these directories would be virtual ones that will be accessible via website/phone call/SMS.
Request for introducing integrated directory services in India was made quite long ago by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and recently DoT (Department of Telecommunications) have approved the proposal. As per sources, the directory shall be integrated with landline directories and will be made accessible via a website or a 5 digit number wherein one can either call or SMS for directory enquiry.
Who will be listed?
Not all landline and mobile customers will be listed on this National Integrated Directory. Only such numbers will be listed on the NIDS (National Integrated Directory Services):
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All landline customers, except those who opted out of directory service in the past
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All mobile or wireless phone users those who opt in for directory service
Charges for using this service?
Such a integrated mobile and landline directory can be of great help and we expect the service to be a paid one, though, no official information is released about it as of now.
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If people have the choice to opt out then why would they allow their personal numbers to be listed in such public directories and let others play with their privacy???
And if TRAI would make it compulsory to list all the number(which in fact is a good idea since all the annoying numbers can be easily identified and terrorists wont get their SIMs that easy and the cellphone pranks will be long gone) then people will harvest these numbers in their spamming directories and will use these directories to advertise(not for themselves, but for their competitors, since people usually tend to curse the company whose adverstisement is there in the ad) and annoyed will be the customers…..
So there’s no-way that any such directory would be possible in the coming future having the present day scenario continued…..
There will be definitely some work around for this too.