Luaus are never easy to pull off, much less when you're planning them from your cellphone.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Delano Choy hasn't decided if he wants his cellphone number to be publicly listed. Click photo for larger image.

But Robinson-based businessman Delano "Volcano" Choy, owner of Hawaiian Island Entertainment, manages his luau-theme party business by having an 800 number that rings his cellphone if no one's around to answer the toll-free line.

That way, party seekers can always find him, whether he's in his offices in Kaneohe, Hawaii, or Pittsburgh, or is hula-dancing on location somewhere else in the United States.

Now, the cellphone industry is planning to start a directory for cellphone owners, and Choy finds himself torn about whether he'll allow his cellphone number to be listed in it.

On the one hand, he says, it would pretty much guarantee his company more visibility.

On the other hand, there's no telling how many telemarketers might get their hands on his number and whittle away at the minutes in his AT&T Wireless plan.

"That would make me think twice about doing it," Choy said. "If they could assure me telemarketers wouldn't get my number. ... We'll have to see when the time comes."

The fear of telemarketers, who are generally absent from the cellphone universe today, has made the proposed directory controversial, and Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest cellphone network, has said it wouldn't participate.

A passion for privacy

But there may be something else going on as well.

There is also "just a general concern about privacy," said Seamus McAteer, an analyst with the San Francisco-based research firm The Zelos Group, which has studied cellphone use. The increasing desire for privacy has been driven by not only telemarketers and spam, but also by identity theft, stalkers and even the Patriot Act.

A strong sign: In the white pages directories for those with "land line" home phones, more than 30 percent of all customers have chosen not to be listed.

There is no widely available e-mail directory, either, partly because of similar fears about spam, which is simply the written version of telemarketing.

Most cellphone users have their own lists of numbers that they routinely call programmed into their phones, and expect fellow users to do the same, creating millions of private calling networks.

That's what Jim Carney, of Mt. Lebanon, does, and he wants no part of the new directory being planned for early next year by the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, also known as the Wireless Association.

"I wouldn't go through the effort to put myself on the wireless database," Carney said. "I don't really see a gain."

Carney, whose cellphone is usually rung by his girlfriend and mother, rarely uses his Sprint PCS minutes for work. Like a growing number of Americans, he doesn't own a "land line" home phone.

Once the new directory starts, "if people start asking me why I'm not listed, then I'll think about listing it," he said.

The Wireless Association said the idea for the directory came from the increasing number of small businessmen and businesswomen who use cellphones and want a way for customers to locate them more easily.

And it said cellphone users' fears about the directory were overblown.

John Walls, vice president of public affairs for the association, said only customers who want to be listed would be, and there was no fee for keeping your name off the 411 directory.

He said there were no plans for a wireless "white pages" printed book or a searchable Internet database. Cellphone numbers will be made available to only those who call 411 and request a number.

Federal law prohibits telemarketers from using automated dialing machines to call cellphone numbers. To be extra safe, Walls said, worried consumers could add their cellphone numbers to the Federal Trade Commission's national "Do Not Call" registry.

But many cellphone users aren't reassured by those statements.

"The telemarketing thing would drive me bonkers," said Matt Rohm, a South Side-based businessman who has a land-line phone in his home, but hasn't answered it in two years. "I'm totally worried about that."

Jordana Beebe said people such as Rohm had reason to be worried.

Fox watching henhouse?

The spokeswoman for the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse said a law was necessary to ensure that wireless carriers keep their word. It's inappropriate, she said, for the industry itself to manage the directory, instead of an outside entity that could ensure that the interests of the customers would come first.

"We feel that consumers should have control over their personal information," Beebe said. Without legislation, she said, carriers could change their minds about whether they ask customers if they want to opt out of the 411 listing.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and his House colleague, Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Chester, have introduced the Wireless 411 Privacy Act in Congress to mandate that carriers seek consent from old and new customers before adding their names to the wireless database, and charge no fees to those who don't want to participate.

Pitts' spokesman, Derek Karchner, said many current wireless phone contracts contained language that would allow carriers to list users without contacting them first. "They can say that it's all opt in, but when the media stop covering this and all the dust settles, they can change their mind and dump all the numbers in."

It's unclear what the chances are for the bill's passage. The Senate version has five co-sponsors. The House version has 39.

At least one wireless carrier shares the telemarketing fears of many customers.

In May, Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Officer Dennis Strigl called the directory a "dumb idea" and said his company would have no part of it.

"We truly believe that releasing our customers' numbers is going down a path we don't want to go," Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Laura Merritt said. "There's potential for a lot of abuse. And when you're the one paying the bill, that's not something you want."

The position has struck a chord, she said. "I'm amazed at the feedback we receive from customers saying thank you for standing up and opposing this."

Still, the association said, six other national wireless carriers had agreed to participate -- Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, Alltel, Nextel and AT&T. However, an AT&T spokeswoman said her company had no plans to participate. A Zelos Group study last year found that half of wireless consumers didn't want their numbers listed in a comprehensive directory and didn't see the need for it.

Eric French counts himself in that group.

The North Side-based contractor has joined the ranks of the strictly mobile, yet shares his number with a select few. Though he relies on his cellphone constantly, he likes to know who is calling him. "I guess I just want to be left alone," he said via e-mail.

Mt. Lebanon's Carney said he wasn't willing to risk telemarketer invasion on his cellphone. He said he'd heard that the Do Not Call Registry didn't always work.

He, too, just wants to control his communication. "If I'm not in the mood to talk and don't want to deal with people, I just turn my cellphone off."