Abstract:
The Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (TRC) of Sri Lanka has imposed a
rule to provide a detail directory for each fixed line telephone customer, as the controlling
body of Sri Lankan telecommunication industry. However, due to the sophisticated
communication methods currently being used across the country, people have shifted to
different alternative quick access of numbers and details that they want to contact in daily
life. Anyhow, still customers are received a directory as per the legal requirement though it
is not used very frequently.
This case study discusses how far the directory is useful and its importance to the customers
lifestyle in the context of finding domestic and business telephone numbers and relevant
information.Reserchers selected 1000 customers including both business and domestic
customers in Colombo,Kalutara,Galle,Kandy and Kurunegala. Field investigators
interviewed those customers through telephones provided by SLT Ltd, and researchers
conducted few in-depth interviews to get an insight of the customers behavior.Discriptive
statistical tools were used to analyze the data.
It was found that nearly 89% of customers do not use the Directory to find contacts, and
mobile phone memory has been the most frequent method of finding those numbers.Futher,
the majority of domestic customers does not know the alternative sophisticated methods
provided by fixed line and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators to find
domestic and institutional numbers. It is nearly 80% of customers who are willing to have
new methods rather than having bulky Directories to find required contact numbers. The
related importance of Telephone Directory compared to other alternative methods has been
significantly low in customers' life style, and it has been a hardly using method. Thus,
this study highlights the importance of introducing an easy method of obtaining contact
numbers in a cost effective manner.
