john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/21/90)
The confusion over ANI persists. So you asked for it--a story (oh
NO!).
Back in the telecom dark ages (the year was 1960 and I was in high
school), an insert came with the phone bill. It was an invitation to
attend an open house sponsored by Pacific Telephone at the Central
Office on Foxworthy Avenue in San Jose. Never missing an opportunity
to see things telephonic, I showed up when the doors opened at 6:00
PM.
At the time, the office was a small #5 crossbar facility with one
marker group. In one area of the building was a windowed enclosure
that contained very large reels of wide (a couple of inches) paper
tape. Periodically, there would be some ka-chunking and one reel or
another would move slightly. Holes were being punched in the tape.
This was the heart of AMA, Automatic Message Accounting which was, as
the guide put it, "the cash register of the office". All toll and long
distance was being recorded on these tapes for later translation by the
business office for billing purposes. The key element of this system
was, as explained by the guide, -- ah but first picture the
surroundings, then I'll tell you. Eisenhower was president, vacuum
tubes were still king, and many areas of the country, if not most, had
yet to even have DDD available. The inside of the office was a din of
mechanical noises as the evening's residential traffic was being
processed.
And the key element of AMA? ANI -- Automatic Number Identification. No
digital technology here. The first 1ESS was still undergoing testing
back east. And yet the term "ANI" was uttered and explained by a
Pacific Telephone employee. ANI is NOT Caller-ID. OK?
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/22/90)
On Oct 21 at 19:05, Peter da Silva writes: > We get the message. ANI is not CID. Fine. So what is the *external* > difference between ANI and CID? You say it sends the calling number > shortly before the called number in an interexchange call. Fine. But > when it gets to the end user what's the difference? Is the number > that shows up on the screen (no matter how it's delivered) any different? Well, yes, there is a considerable difference, but that wasn't my point either. I am aware that some are irritated by those who insist on the proper terminology when discussing technical topics, but without a common language reference things can start becoming very confusing. As far as the external difference goes, it is night and day. ANI is used primarily for billing calls and as such is automatically processed into call records or a database for marketing purposes. CID's major manifestation will be a number showing up on someone's LCD window. If I am in a room with people discussing telephony and someone says, "I would like to know if someone can help me utilize my ANI to the fullest", my immediate thought is that the person operates an IEC or a 900 service and is wishing some industrial help. And, yes, it does make a difference how it's delivered. Caller-ID is always delivered to an end user. ANI is typically delivered to a "brother in the cloth" common carrier (whether he, in turn, deliviers the data to an end user is irrelavent). Caller-ID is delivered to the end user according to Bellcore standards. ANI is delivered in many flavors. ANI is industrial; CID is consumer. BTW, if someone has two lines and a very smart two-line phone that can conference and divert, do you say that person has Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, and 3-Way Calling? I don't think so. Confusing ANI with CID is the direct equivalent of saying that a person with CW, CF, and 3-Way has two lines. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
nagle@uunet.uu.net (John Nagle) (10/24/90)
Caller ID is the delivery vehicle for Automatic Number
Identification information to the subscriber. Properly, ANI refers to
the original association of called number with physical line performed
in the originating central office. Transmission of ANI information
via a sender was originally referred to as Automatic Number
Forwarding, or ANF, but that terminology is obsolete, and today the
term "ANI" includes "ANF".
In existing systems, ANI information is delivered to customers in
very different ways depending upon whether the customer is a large or
small one. With the transition to ISDN, and the availability of a
digital signalling channel, the distinction between "Caller ID" and
"ANI" will be much reduced, as the same information will be provided
to all ISDN customers as a packet on the D channel.
The interesting story in the ANI area is how it came to pass that
ANI information is forwarded through the switching system, rather than
going no further than the originating office. It's a consequence of
phone deregulation, which made long distance carriers retail, rather
than wholesale, businesses. But enough for now.
John Naglevarney@ihlpf.att.com (Al L Varney) (10/24/90)
In article <13899@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > On Oct 21 at 19:05, Peter da Silva writes: > > We get the message. ANI is not CID. Fine. So what is the *external* > > difference between ANI and CID? > Well, yes, there is a considerable difference, ... > [besides] the proper terminology when discussing technical topics ... > Caller-ID is always delivered to an end user. ANI is typically delivered > to a "brother in the cloth" common carrier > ANI is industrial; CID is consumer. Two other differences: 1) ANI can be sent in 7 and 10 digit versions, depending on who's sending/receiving, and identifies the number CHARGED for this part of the call. May not be a valid number or the number actually assigned to the caller. CallerID is (so far) always 10 digits. 2) While the above description doesn't sound like a big difference for most callers, look at a call that involves Call Forwarding. Any ANI sent on the "forwarded" leg of the call identifies the Billing Number of the forwarding station. Any CallerID delivered to the terminating telephone identifies the original calling telephone. Haven't heard anyone say that CallerID can't be used by other than end user. Al Varney, AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL
rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) (10/25/90)
In article <13950@accuvax.nwu.edu>, varney@ihlpf.att.com (Al L Varney) writes: >Two other differences: 1) ANI can be sent in 7 and 10 digit versions, >depending on who's sending/receiving, and identifies the number >CHARGED for this part of the call. May not be a valid number or the >number actually assigned to the caller. CallerID is (so far) always >10 digits. I sure hope the ten-digit limit isn't built into either the protocol or the displays. While North American Numbering Plan (NANP) numbers are ten digits if you strip off the country code, in general phone numbers can be just about any length. Does anyone out there actually have a working display? Is it limited to ten digits? Trivia department: We saw a few very long phone numbers on this list a few weeks back. What's the shortest phone number (including country code) in the world? What's the longest? To qualify, it's got to be a world-wide unique number, diallable from anywhere ("0" doesn't count).
dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) (10/26/90)
In article <14027@accuvax.nwu.edu>, rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: > I sure hope the ten-digit limit isn't built into either the protocol or > the displays. While North American Numbering Plan (NANP) numbers are > ten digits if you strip off the country code, in general phone numbers > can be just about any length. Does anyone out there actually have a > working display? Is it limited to ten digits? The Caller*ID displays available retail in NJ have come in two varieties. Some of the early units had seven-digit displays. The ones offered today have a two-line display of about sixteen characters per line. They format the information with date, time, the words NEW or RPT, and such, and provide a ten-digit number display, with two dashes for punctuation: AAA-PPP-NNNN. (This refers to the box sold by Sears, with AT&T's name and logo on it, and made by a company in Connecticut whose name I cannot remember right now!) Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857
cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) (10/30/90)
In article <14027@accuvax.nwu.edu> rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: >Trivia department: We saw a few very long phone numbers on this list a >few weeks back. What's the shortest phone number (including country >code) in the world? What's the longest? To qualify, it's got to be a >world-wide unique number, diallable from anywhere ("0" doesn't count). I am informed that the CCITT mandates that the longest legal phone number is 12 digits long. I am not sure whether this is meant to include or exclude country code, so the longest legal phone number is either 12 or 15 digits. I doubt that any actual phone numbers exceed 12 digits today; the NANP, the U.K, and France (the only cases I have at hand) are all 11 digits or less including country code. cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) [Moderator's Note: But I think the original author was talking about the total number of pulses when dialing with a rotary phone, as opposed to simply how many digits had to be dialed in total. PAT]