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Our review of the current recommendation 192.com dated April 2008

The need for speed

How long does it take to find a phone number, a postcode, your nearest sports shop or your great-great grandfather?

These days, most of us would immediately turn to the internet for this information, then spend hours trawling through the mass of results spewed out by various search engines, finally wishing we’d just dusted off the phone book to battle with its mysterious classification system (do you go for sports retailer, sporting equipment supplier or sportswear manufacturer?)

According to a survey by 192.com, phone books and the like are not only old-fashioned and confusing, they are unwanted, environmental disasters. The company is even running a campaign to ban them. And of course you shouldn’t criticise unless you can offer a better alternative, so that’s exactly what they’ve done. The website is not limited to any one entity – businesses, people, phone numbers or postcodes, for example. Rather it’s all there at once and you can choose to search within certain parameters, or hedge your bets and search all the databases at once. And the deeper you delve, the more you find within a refreshingly short space of time.

Basic searches

The website’s front page is straightforward and uncluttered, fitting on one page so no scrolling is required. Tabs running across the top invite quick searches for businesses, people, family history, local amenities and maps and the search fields are central, large and clearly labelled. This makes them all simple to use and in most cases a search will result in a speedy, accurate response, including full addresses, postcodes and telephone numbers: all the details you would expect to find from any directory enquiries service, with the added bonus that in this case it is free.

Local amenities can also be searched by county and then by type – chemist or nightclub for example – or you can just tap in your own terms. Again, you can be confident of a high success rate.

Maps on the internet have recently taken on a new dimension – the fascination of the aerial view. This has not escaped the attention of 192.com, which has extremely clear aerial mapping for those of us wishing to have a bird’s eye view for a few minutes. The maps section has considerably more uses than this, however, such as detailed searches for streets and towns, and options to see useful places like banks, restaurants and petrol stations indicated by little icons on the map. The results of these icons are also listed to the side of the map, so that you can still distinguish between 30 restaurants in a small space. Click on one and you will be given its full address and phone number, and the icon will sprout a little speech bubble, highlighting its position for you along with its contact details. Very handy.

Premium services

It’s when we rummage around the people section that things start to get really interesting. As well as simple, free searches for your nan’s phone number because it really has been that long since you spoke, it is also possible to trace your entire family, living or dead. For free? Well, no. It costs a bit – and more about that later – but on the basis that 192.com boasts access to census information from 1861 to the present day, including sole access to the 2008 electoral roll, your chances of a successful search have got to be pretty high. The company says this means that there are 630 million names on its database.

The new records enable people looking for lost friends and family to find their current address simply by searching for their name on the site. To help users refine their search, 192.com has added an age guide almost all of its 2008 electoral roll records. These generally come in categories spanning four to five years – 60-64 years, for example. This of course also gives visitors the option to search by estimated age, particularly useful when searching for someone with a common name without knowing their location.

Among the other premium services are records for all recorded births, marriages and deaths since 1837. The precise details available in these records vary greatly depending on what records were kept at the time. This alone makes for intriguing reading as it gives the reader an insight into the nature of record and census keeping over the last two centuries.

For those wishing to investigate further then, bear in mind that before 1875 up to 10 per cent of births were not registered, and it was only in the same year that it became compulsory to register births and deaths. After 1875, records are likely to be sketchy as certain matters of importance such as women’s maiden names did not figure prominently until around 1911 and death certificates only recorded the deceased’s date of birth from 1969.

Also within the premium services are opportunities to search for company and director reports. The price of access to this world of personal and business history really depends on how far you want to take it, although there are some standard costs to get you started. As the system is based on accumulation of credits, there is no need to have separate accounts or registrations to be able to perform different searches, it’s all packaged together, although finding details of a company director, for example, will cost you more credits than a search of the electoral roll. Credits are sold in packages starting from 23p per credit after an initial payment of £149.99 for annual membership.

Back to the front page

Now here’s something that every web page should have – some way of getting back to the start without having to click ‘Back’ dozens of times or retype the original URL. It’s pretty simple to link a static logo to the main page, and 192.com must have done its research here, as it has exactly this feature.

So, one click and we’re back at the start to see what else the website has to offer, as if business pages, a telephone directory, nearly 200 years of electoral roll, census records, street maps and aerial views were not enough.

And clearly it would seem that all this is far from enough. This website, looking fairly simple (but effective) at first glance, is a much more complex character.  Tucked neatly towards the bottom of the main page, with less prominence than the standard features, are all the many services and products the website offers. It’s visible enough to attract the curious and serious visitors, but discreet enough to be unobtrusive to the casual searcher. This is an important distinction for the company to maintain if it is to attract and retain users who will gradually become familiar with the site. These users will be more likely to make it their first port of call if they feel no pressure to register or subscribe for its basic services. So, let’s look in turn at what other services are on offer.

No need to go online

For the serious researchers, those who need very quick access to business and electorate information, the company offers CDs jammed full of records, all marketed under the name of UK-info. So, you can get UK-info Business 2005, which holds information on millions of British companies, director reports, key contacts and company reports.

Even higher up the scale, CDs are on offer containing comprehensive details of electoral rolls and company listings.

Mobile phone and lone-worker tracking

Clicking on this link takes you to an external site called VeriLocation. These services are generally intended as security devices, the former for parents becoming concerned about their child’s whereabouts, and the latter for industries such as district nursing where staff may be travelling to unknown or vulnerable locations.

The mobile phone tracking works by combining signals from the UK’s major mobile phone companies with web-based technology to provide a location viewable on a web page that is capable of showing street level and aerial maps, such as 192.com. VeriLocation admits that there are some downsides to the accuracy of the system as it relies on mobile phone network coverage, meaning results could only be accurate to within 5 kilometres, and if the tracked phone is switched off then no result will be returned at all.

As with the premium search services on 192.com, credits are used to pay for the service at an initial cost of £5 plus VAT a month for 10 credits and 20p per credit thereafter. Although the website makes it clear that tracking should not be viewed as a substitute for responsible parenting, it seems quite a small price to pay for a certain level of security for parents who don’t want to worry about giving their children some independence and freedom.

Lone-worker tracking is operated through a separate device providing highly accurate GPS data and incorporating a panic alarm.

Compare property prices

Now this really is an unexpected feature for a website ostensibly intended as an extension of the directory enquiries service. Imagine calling directory enquiries to find out the most up-to-date property prices in your area, or in an area where you are looking to buy. If you thought that was improbable, then it just shows how far directory enquiries have come, because you can now do exactly that on 192.com and for a fairly basic, but useful, level of information it’s completely free. Typing in any address will result in details of the price for which it was last sold and the date on which the transaction took place, all courtesy of Land Registry records.

At a time when the rise or fall of house prices are pretty unpredictable, this feature could come in useful for people wishing to work out whether they are getting a good deal or whether investment in a certain area looks like a good bet or not.

Maps for businesses

As well as impressive standard mapping, the company offers tools for businesses too. A bank for example, could use the product to enable customers to search for one of its branches. Once a branch or a selection of branches has been found, the customer then has the option of viewing contact information, facilities offered by their chosen branch and details of the bank’s products and services – exchange rates or fees, for instance.

These maps offer the same range of add-ons as the standard map searches, so you can add, among others, the nearest car parks, restaurants and petrol stations to your map, as well as working out a route to or from another point.

Preventing fraud and identity theft

It’s one of the biggest issues in society today, and rightly so. The rise of the internet, mobile phones, credit cards and the whole globalisation phenomenon has sadly brought about a rise in various forms of identity fraud. In turn, this increases the need for preventative methods, and this is another market into which 192.com has spread itself. It offers two tools for companies selling over the internet wishing to increase their own security, as well as that of their customers by being able to verify their identity and process, reject or refer their payments quickly, accurately and efficiently.

Clicking the link to both products brings up detailed descriptions of their application for different levels of users and the company also provides online demonstrations of the product. Just like the feel of the site as a whole it really is respectfully presented – there is not a jot of hard sell or fear-mongering; someone somewhere has put in a lot of hard graft to get these tools working for the advantage of society in general and the site exudes a passionate belief in the services it provides.

Overall impression

A campaign to ban the phone directory seems almost superfluous given the extent of information at your fingertips on this site. But it of course is not just the relative lack of information or maze of classifications that irks the makers of this site. There is also the fact that being landed with three or more phone directories each year just seems such a waste of paper and resources, especially when they are so rarely used and shunned by recycling facilities. To landfill they go, millions of them every year.

There are few if any aspects of 192.com that should head for a virtual landfill. It has a friendly feel, ushering in the passer-by to look up the number of the Indian take-away in town, then knowledgably describing the latest anti-fraud tool to an interested businessman searching the market for something to secure his company and the trust of his customers. Meanwhile, hundreds of forgotten people are gradually re-entering the lives of their descendants.

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