Finding Telephone Numbers

The most reliable way to find telephone numbers is to call directory assistance, 555-1212, in the appropriate area code (i.e. for Detroit call 313-555-1212). For the low low charge of $0.50 the operators can quickly bring up the phone number. If you don’t know the area code, try using the AmeriCom Long Distance Area Decoder.

There are free online alternatives, but none of them are as up-to-date as directory assistance. If you need the phone number of a business in the United States, try a Yellow Pages search on SuperPages.com. For White Pages information, The Ultimate White Pages provides links and a search interface for several different White Page search engines for the United States. For other phone number sources good places to start are the Phone Numbers section of Yahoo and the IPL’s listings of Telephone & Address Resources. For directories outside of the United States, try Telephone Directories on the Web.

Reverse Telephone Directories
AnyWho and Infospace offer the feature of reverse phone listing searching, to find a name and address from a phone number.

You may also want to look at the IPL FARQ on Finding People.