ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996              TAG: 9612140002
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: 2    EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH WEISE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

PHONE COMPANIES TO ADD E-MAIL ADDRESSES TO LISTINGS

Having trouble finding an e-mail address?

In the coming months, it may become as simple as opening the phone book in some parts of the United States and Canada.

In response to customers' requests, phone companies in California, New York and the Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec plan to give customers the option of listing e-mail and Web page addresses with their phone numbers.

``We've been getting calls into our business office from people who want to be able to be reached electronically,'' said John Britton, spokesman for Pacific Telesis, the parent company of Pacific Bell.

A fee for the service, likely to be available by spring, hasn't been set yet. But Britton said it would probably be similar to the charge for listing a second phone number. That costs residential customers 85 cents a month and a one-time fee of $5 for each line.

About 1.2 million Californians are online. ``The No. 1 reason people tell us they go online is that they want to have e-mail - which means a good chunk of those 1.2 million people have e-mail addresses,'' Britton said.

Nynex, a regional phone company serving the Northeast, will begin rolling out the service in February in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Nynex spokesman Phil Santoro said businesses will first list their information, followed by residential customers.

``The main demand has been from businesses, which is why we've started there. But it's definitely the direction in which customers are going,'' he said from the Middleton, Mass., headquarters of the Nynex Yellow Pages division.

There will be a nominal fee for the listing, he said.

``People who want to get their e-mail or (Web address) in the next phone book should contact us now,'' he said.

Bell Canada, which serves customers in Ontario and Quebec, is already taking orders for the additional listings, though new phone books won't be printed until February.

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