As part of various regulatory settlements over the years, the Regional
Bell Operating Companies in the US were required to share Yellow Pages
Data with thrid party providers. I am interested in how I go about
getting/licensing this data from the phone companies directly for
commercial resuse, that is I intend to be able to use the data on a
web site or package it in interesting ways.

(Not interested in licensing it from commercial broker/aggregators
like InfoUSA or similar)

try contacting the bell companies' lawyers?

SBC runs http://www.sbcsmartyellowpages.com/ or you could become an
affiliate of www.smartpages.com
"
Join the SMARTlink Network - and offer your users access to millions
of business listings and other useful information. It’s a great way to
add value to your web site.

We offer several linking options:
- Hypertext links
- Icons (graphic buttons)
- Search forms
"

both have lots of information, hopefully it will help you.