A rumor that the 2017 Alaska Power and Telephone phone book will be the last one printed is not true.
“For some reason that rumor keeps cycling through the Upper Lynn Canal,” said Mark McCready, AP&T director of marketing.
McCready said no official decision has been made to discontinue the printed directory.
“That is not to say that we have not had that conversation in the last few years,” McCready said.
He said that AP&T hired a firm two years ago to conduct a poll, sampling each of the locations where the company provides telephone service. The poll results showed that more than 50 percent of customers would rather have the printed book as opposed to an online-only version.
But McCready said AP&T is “moving in that direction” toward an electronic directory. He said the question of whether AP&T should move away from a printed book deserves to be asked every year. Discontinuing the book would save the company money, McCready added.
AP&T is no longer required by law to publish phone books after the Alaska Legislature unanimously approved House Bill 169 in 2014. It was an effort to reduce the number of unwanted directories that would pile up and cause “phone book clutter.”
AP&T chief operating officer, and soon to be chief executive officer, Michael Garrett said AP&T “internally looked at that” and decided to continue publishing the books. He also mentioned that the average AP&T customer base is of an older age, which may be a factor as to why printed phone books are still wanted.
“We felt that there was still a continued value in having a phone book in our communities,” Garrett said.
Garrett said AP&T may not always have access to phone numbers from areas outside of AP&T’s jurisdiction like Juneau and Ketchikan because other telephone providers are discontinuing their own printed books after the 2014 legislation. AP&T buys those out-of-borough listings for their directories each year.