hood@rustler.uswest.com (Ron Hood) (02/28/91)
I just finished reading what I though was a fairly interesting article
titled "Call Completion: An Easy Sell for Cellular" in the February
15, 1991 edition of {Telephone Engineer & Manager}. Here's a quick
summary:
Automated Directory Assistance Call Completion (ADACC) is a new
service that could potentially be offered by telephone companies
whereby a caller to Directory Assistance could have their call placed
automatically by the DA operator. This differs from today's
environment, where the number is read back to the DA caller (or sent
via a voice announcement) who must then dial the number to place the
call. There would most likely be a fee associated with the automatic
call completion.
The article didn't state what equipment would be used to offer the
service, but given that the article was written by a Computer Consoles
Inc. employee I would suspect that it is based on their hardware and
software.
The service would be available to all subscribers, however, it is
envisioned that it would be of particular interest to cellular users
for the following reasons:
1) Most cellular users don't carry phone books with them and are
therefor frequent users of DA,
2) It is often inconvenient for a cellular user to write down a number,
and
3) Dialing a phone in a moving vehicle can be difficult.
The article claimed that seven to ten percent of DA callers are likely
to accept ADACC offers, and that the acceptance rate among cellular
users could be up to ten times higher than the average.
Unfortunately, there are several obstacles to providing ADACC,
particularly to cellular users. These include:
1) The system must compare the calling number and the called number
looked up up by DA to determine of they are both in the same LATA.
If the numbers are in different LATAs then ADACC cannot be offered
as this would be considered an interexchange service under terms
of the Modified Final Judgement (MFJ). This means that you could
not use ADACC to call a number in a different LATA.
2) In order to support billing for ADACC the system must receive
Automatic Number Identification (ANI), and apparently many cellular
systems do not provide this. The Mobile Telephone Switching Office
(MTSO) often looks like a large PBX to the network, and instead of
providing the number of the calling cellular phone, provides the
the access line designation for the particular trunk being used.
Since this is not associated with the specific caller it is useless
for billing purposes.
3) Calls that would have been considered "local" had they been placed
directly by the cellular caller through the cellular network may
result in toll charges if placed by ADACC. This is apparently due
to the different manner in which the calls would be set up.
4) Cellular roamers are even more likely to call DA, and would also
present additional billing difficulties.
As a possible solution to the billing problems it was proposed that
the cellular provider could bundle DA and ADACC calls into a single
price, regardless of whether ADACC was actually used.
The article concludes by saying that ADACC is a winner for everyone
involved. The cellular subscribers get a convenient new service, the
cellular operator gets additional air time from its subscribers, and
the operator service provider gets some additional revenues. Although
it went unstated, I would expect that Computer Consoles Inc. would
also get to sell some more computers and software.
As a disclaimer I should point out that the article was written by a
company hoping to sell its equipment to other telephone companies, and
that because of this it does not necessarily represent the opinions or
intentions of an operating telephone company, an operator services
provider, a cellular operator, or a cellular user.
Ronald C. Hood U S WEST Advanced Technologies
hood@uswest.com Englewood, Colorado
{boulder,sunpeaks,amdahl}!uswat!hoodnagle@uunet.uu.net (John Nagle) (03/03/91)
hood@rustler.uswest.com (Ron Hood) writes: > Automated Directory Assistance Call Completion (ADACC) is a new > service that could potentially be offered by telephone companies > whereby a caller to Directory Assistance could have their call placed > automatically by the DA operator. This differs from today's > environment, where the number is read back to the DA caller (or sent > via a voice announcement) who must then dial the number to place the > call. There would most likely be a fee associated with the automatic > call completion. The fee discussed here in Pac Bell territory is $0.35, plus the regular directory assistance charge, plus tolls in some circumstances. I've previously suggested in TELECOM Digest that phones be built which have a voice recognition capability good enough to decode the automated DA announcements. Recognition of clear, separated numeric digits against a quiet background is well within the capabilities of existing low-end voice recognition systems. I'd been thinking in terms of desk phones with menu-based dialing, but the mobile application makes more sense commercially. And if you have to redial, the local hardware approach eliminates the need for a second call to directory assistance. Some equipment manufacturer should pick up on this. John Nagle