The Times recently published an article in which it claims that:

Since the abolition of 192 services almost a year ago, calls to directory inquiries have fallen by three million a week and confusion about the different prices of the 118 numbers has worsened.

The article also suggests that many people are now paying more for directory inquiries than with the old 192. In time prices will likely decrease, but what has gone wrong in the short term?

The regulator, OFTEL, attempted to increase competition in directory inquiries by a major shake-up. When the telecoms sector was more generally liberalized in the 1980s, competition was introduced in a more evolutionary way. Customers who did nothing remained with British Telecom (BT). Cable and Wireless's Mercury subsidiary was granted a license to compete with BT, and gradually new companies joined the market. BT, keen to keep its customers, reduced prices steadily over the following two decades. Thus, both customers who changed supplier, and also those who did not, benefited from competition.

Had 192 been allowed to continue, consumers would have been able stick with the service they knew and trusted, only switching to an alternative company if they understood it served a better price or service. It would have led to lower prices from the start and made more sense to consumers. Of course, leaving 192 in place would have given BT the benefit of inertia, but some inertia here might have helped directory inquiry competition work better.