Verizon directory assistance cost increasing

Verizon, Virginia’s largest telephone company, is more than doubling its rates for local directory-assistance calls beginning next Thursday.

The cost of each local directory-assistance call will increase from 36 cents to 75 cents.

The first three calls to directory assistance each month by residential and business customers are still free. The higher charges will apply to calls after that allowance each month.

During each directory-assistance call, customers are allowed to request numbers for two individual phone listings.

State regulation of local-directory assistance rates was lifted in December when the service was declared competitive in a deregulation case before the State Corporation Commission. Verizon can set those rates at whatever the market can bear.