Eric Skinner <443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca> (04/10/91)
As mentioned here before, Bell Canada's implementation of Caller*ID is flawed in that inappropriate numbers are sometimes returned as the calling number. Bell's document, "Interface Disclosure ID-0001, Sept 1989, Pretrial Disclosure, Call Management Services, Terminal-to-Network Interface," states that the number to be displayed is the "Dialable Directory Number: the number that the called subscriber can dial to return a call to the calling party." However, this is not how things work in practice. Bell returns the number of the calling trunk, which may be the correct number to call, or which may be an outgoing-only trunk leading from a PBX. The company's main number or a DID number would be appropriate in this case. This effectively makes "Call Screening" and "Call Return" (*69) useless. Preliminary calls to Bell from a few Ottawa subscribers have led to little action; I'm interested in getting email addresses and phone numbers for other interested Bell subscribers in the hopes of convincing Bell to make their service more useful. (Who knows, we might turn it into a local discussion group about Bell's services, if interest warrants). Note: This is *not* intended to be a "bash Bell" activity; in general I'm extremely pleased with how they do things. Please write to: Eric Skinner +1 613 230 0261 University of Ottawa 443114@acadvm1.uottawa.ca (and Software Exoterica Corporation xgml!ers@uunet.uu.net)