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I hate calling 411. The fees that carriers charge for information calls are astounding. On your mobile phone, they can be as high as $3.25. So I do everything I can to avoid calling information. Luckily, there is one totally free method and one method that will cost $.20 or be free depending on your phone plan.

The totally free option is to use 1 (800) Free-411. Call the number and you will hear a 12 second ad before being connected to the service. That’s all you have to do. No charges to your phone bill. If you want to be connected, you have to pony up for whatever the advertiser is selling (according to the website).

The other option, if you don’t have a pen handy or if you don’t want to buy something, is to use Google’s SMS service. Basically, you send a text message to GOOGL (the website now says GOOGLE, but I’ve always used GOOGL) with the information you need. Business name and zip code or city/state will usually do the trick. What you are doing is basically running a Google Maps query via text message. Google will then send you a text message back with the results of the query. The service is free, but you’ll have to pay for the texts in and out if you don’t have texting as part of your plan.

But that’s not all that the Google SMS service can do. On the website you can find example queries to find movies, stock quotes, weather, dictionaries, and other items. You can even query Froogle (Google’s not very good shopping search engine) if you wish.

There are some other entries if your phone is capable of using Java and you have a data plan through your carrier. Google Maps for Mobile (coverage here) is a wonderful tool that basically puts Google Maps in the palm of your hand. It can even show current traffic maps if you wish. TechCrunch has another competitor to Google Maps, a service called Tellme. Tellme is voice activated software that basically does the same thing as Google Maps, allowing for directions, maps, and search but by using your voice rather than typing in search results. The product is currently in beta and limited to Sprint and Cingular customers. However, Tellme was acquired by Microsoft yesterday, so I’d imagine that the software will become much more available in the near future.

So, there are several options other than dialing 411 on your phone and hoping that your telephone company is nice enough not to totally rip you off.