Decades ago, the only ultimate colossus of information was the library, where you could find anything that has ever been catalogued and noted. In this age, however, the Internet has completely replaced that era. The Internet is actually probably the largest ‘library’ around nowadays as you can find almost everything you need, from film reviews to beauty tips to unknown phone numbers. And the best part is, all this can be dug out in less than a few minutes.

Public Directories

The public telephone directories hold all land-line phone numbers and their respective owners listed in themselves, but they do not contain cell-phone details. This is due to the existence of several privacy laws which protect the identity of the cellular phone user.

Wireless 411 Privacy Act

This is one such law that has been passed to protect the privacy rights of cellular phone users. In fact, there also exist laws restricting the number of calls made by telemarketers on wireless phones. More information on these laws is available on the website of the Federal Communications Commission.

Accuracy in Results

As is the case with any such thing in life, accuracy is what matters the most. For example, if you go to a library which does not keep up-to-date books and magazines, your search is going to be quite futile. Similarly, if the database you’re searching is not updated, your results will be inaccurate and may even be inconsistent.

You may ask why this inconsistency creeps in: try to imagine how many new cell-phone connections are purchased every single day and how often people change their numbers, especially the younger generation. Also, there is a limit to the total permutations that can be obtained using a specific number of digits due to which you can’t keep producing new numbers every day; hence mobile phone companies have a habit of registering new users with old, discarded numbers. Therefore if the database is not updated, you may get inconsistent results.

If you get the results via such an ‘outdated’ directory database, you will find yourself having details of the previous owner of the number that you are looking for, and not the current one. This is obviously a situation anybody would want to avoid at all costs! Therefore you must choose a database which is constantly updated.

Thus all said, you realise that cell-phone numbers are neither stored in public directories and nor do cell-phone directories exist, due to existent laws protecting privacy rights of users. The most important thing to keep in mind is to make sure you choose the services of a provider whose database sets are regularly updated and hence get accurate results.