STEVEF%WALKER_RICHER_QUINN@mcimail.com (STEVEF) (12/19/89)
Does anyone know what the service is called or where to get more
information on AT&T's offering of Caller ID on 800 service (the
service used by American Express in the previously posted story)? I
have spent about 2 weeks talking to various people at AT&T, but nobody
even acknowledges that it exists.
Other questions: Is this service available to 800 Access Line subscribers?
(This is where incoming calls get routed to your regular local lines, instead
of coming in on dedicated trunks).
I have gotten various responses, such as "You need ISDN to do that" I
don't believe this is true. Anyone know for sure?
Does this service use the same boxes used for Caller ID CLASS service
offered by the RBOC? Do you have to be in a CO that has Caller ID?
Thanks in advance - please mail responses to:
stevef%walker_richer_quinn@mcimail.comJohn Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> (12/22/89)
STEVEF <STEVEF%WALKER_RICHER_QUINN@mcimail.com> writes: > Does anyone know what the service is called or where to get more > information on AT&T's offering of Caller ID on 800 service (the > service used by American Express in the previously posted story)? I > [...] > I have gotten various responses, such as "You need ISDN to do that" I > don't believe this is true. Anyone know for sure? > [...] > Does this service use the same boxes used for Caller ID CLASS service > offered by the RBOC? Do you have to be in a CO that has Caller ID? The service that provides the 800 customer with the callers number has nothing to do with CLASS and does not require CLASS capability at either the origin or the destination. It is simply the passing of the caller's number obtained via ordinary ANI to the end customer. This can be and is done in several ways. One is to simply send the info as a stream of MF or DTMF tones to equipment at the 800 subscriber's premises. A better way would be via a separate data line, and yes, ISDN could be used for this purpose. Whether or not it is required is simply a policy call by the long distance carrier. I would suspect that this service is only supplied to major customers and that anyone an individual might reach calling listed numbers will know nothing about it. To find anyone who is knowledgeable, at AT&T or anywhere else, will require a considerable amount of legwork. I was peripherally involved with a project that involved this and I know there was a major amount of channels that had to be gone through before anyone would talk about it. Again, the service has nothing to do with SS#7, CLASS, or any other relatively recent technology. When in use, there is no way to block your number from being transmitted. There are no tarrifs or regulations that would protect your privacy. And there is no way to know if it is being used. It doesn't matter where you call from--across town or across the country; it works just as well either way. As long as you are calling from a FGD compliant office (most of them are now) the 800 customer has *your* number. How's that grab all you privacy phreaks out there? :-) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: John, I suspect many of the privacy phreaks would go so far as to say just because some company is paying for their call, that company still has no right to know the number of the call they are paying for! Just a guess, but there are some extremists in that camp. PT]
ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (12/23/89)
>The service that provides the 800 customer with the callers number has >nothing to do with CLASS and does not require CLASS capability at >either the origin or the destination. It is simply the passing of the >caller's number obtained via ordinary ANI to the end customer. >Again, the service has nothing to do with SS#7, CLASS, or any other >relatively recent technology. When in use, there is no way to block >your number from being transmitted. There are no tarrifs or >regulations that would protect your privacy. Unless the carriers are providing calling number identification to customers for free (fat chance!) they must file a tariff for the service with the FCC. AT&T did indeed file a tariff with the FCC for its Info-Call service and charges 2-3 cents per calling number delivered. We can thank the FCC for completely igonoring the privacy aspects of the tariff and approving it without much fanfare. The FCC could have chosen to take the same policy stance as the California PUC and mandate the ability to block calling line forwarding to *IEC customers* (though not of course to the IEC itself which needs the number for billing purposes). They chose not to. Marvin Sirbu
John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> (12/25/89)
Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes: > Unless the carriers are providing calling number identification to > customers for free (fat chance!) they must file a tariff for the > service with the FCC. AT&T did indeed file a tariff with the FCC for > its Info-Call service and charges 2-3 cents per calling number > delivered. We can thank the FCC for completely igonoring the privacy > aspects of the tariff and approving it without much fanfare. It is true that tariff would have to be filed with the FCC, but I had discounted that when I made my comment. With the exception of broadcasting, the FCC has historically avoided "social engineering" aspects of the communications field. Originally, the purpose of the FCC was to prevent chaos on the airwaves. From a logical point of view, the FCC was correct to ignore the privacy aspects of 800 caller number delivery. It's only function should have been to ensure that the technical aspects of the feature were sound, did not violate any other *technical* provisions of the rules and regs, and to advise on the suitability of the proposed charge. Yes, indeed, we can thank the FCC for doing its job, and not assuming the role of thought policeman for us all. BTW, answering an 800 number without calling number delivery is roughly equivalent to answering a POTS line and having the operator say, "I have a collect call, you've just accepted the charges, and it's none of your business who it is." But back to the FCC for a moment. To get an idea why I am against the FCC meddling in areas other than technical one only has to look at the way the commission handles the broadcaster. As you are no doubt aware, commissioners are appointed by the party in the White House. Over the past twenty-some years that I have been in the business, the FCC's policies directly reflect the political leanings of the moment. For instance, under Johnson, the FCC set up this incredibly exhaustive list of requirements for public service that radio and television station had to adhere to in order to keep their license. Every three years, each and every station had to prove that they had met their public service commitment. You remember public service, the stuff that played every Sunday morning and late at night that no one listened to. Many of these requirements lasted through the Nixon-Ford administration, and stayed with Carter. Broadcasters jumped for joy as the Reagan administration promised to ease up on all these programming requirements. That plus a relaxing of many technical rules was heralded as a major step forward. They thought they had arrived. The Republicans had a surprise in store. Reacting to fundamentalists and other righteous folk, the FCC has now set itself up as the Prudence Peabody of the airwaves. For instance, a station in Las Vegas was recently fined for playing a rock record (I forget what) that somebody thought was obscene and complained about it. Never mind that the same record routinely plays everywhere else in the country, or that the place was, after all, Sin City. The FCC considers a station guilty of obscenity until proven innocent--and most stations would rather pay the fine than the high costs of litigation. So this is what happens when the FCC tries to diddle with things that are not related to the nuts and bolts of communication. I would rather not have the FCC consider the social ramifications of the entities that they oversee and stick to their design function: the establishment and enforcement of technical standards in our communications services. > The FCC could have chosen to take the same policy stance as the > California PUC and mandate the ability to block calling line > forwarding to *IEC customers* (though not of course to the IEC itself > which needs the number for billing purposes). They chose not to. Thank heaven for that. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
Leonard P Levine <len@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> (12/30/89)
From article <2367@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon): > How's that grab all you privacy phreaks out there? :-) > [Moderator's Note: John, I suspect many of the privacy phreaks would > go so far as to say just because some company is paying for their > call, that company still has no right to know the number of the call > they are paying for! Just a guess, but there are some extremists in > that camp. PT] I do not know about other privacy freaks, but here in Wisconsin there are several "anonymous" 800 numbers you can call with crime tips. They all stress that no one will ask your name, special codes are used to insure privacy, rewards are given etc. all with no way of detecting just who was the tipster. Lots of people believe that these systems are secure, when they find out that they are not, they will feel tricked. Nothing is more offensive to a person than to find that a trusted person has just played a trick on them. + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | Leonard P. Levine e-mail len@evax.cs.uwm.edu | | Professor, Computer Science Office (414) 229-5170 | | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Home (414) 962-4719 | | Milwaukee, WI 53201 U.S.A. FAX (414) 229-6958 | + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +
john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) (12/31/89)
Leonard P Levine <len@csd4.csd.uwm.edu> writes: > [concerning anonymous "tip" lines] > Lots of people believe that these systems are secure, when they find > out that they are not, they will feel tricked. Nothing is more > offensive to a person than to find that a trusted person has just > played a trick on them. I couldn't agree with you more. It would be totally inappropriate for such a service to have callers' numbers available to it, either by 800-style ANI or by CLASS implimentation. A service such as this would be out of business in a hurry if it was discovered to be keeping records of callers' phone numbers. But just because a service isn't appropriate everywhere for everybody is not an excuse to make it unavailable to anyone, is it? Call waiting is hardly an appropriate feature for a modem line, but is that any reason to make the service unavailable to anyone? No, you use things where they are useful, obviously. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !