The telephone is a tool regularly used by all very small businesses (VSBs) to create and maintain relations with their economic environment. This article, which draws on a quantitative survey on over 800 VSBs, analyses commercial use of the telephone by combining business data with data on telephone traffic and uses. The analysis highlights the dynamic and asymmetrical nature of telephony in VSBs, and proposes a typology of uses that takes into account different modes of inscription of the telephone in business relations.