covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 21-Aug-1989 1735) (08/22/89)
I'm going to be as brief as possible, since this has been argued before. These are the two most often stated benefits: 1. Gathering numbers for voicemail systems. 2. Stopping harrassing phone calls. The first is not real. The number I'm calling from is not necessarily the number I want the call returned to. It may not even support incoming calls. The second does not require caller ID to the end-user. As currently implemented a subscriber who doesn't have a display can still trap harrassing callers by dialling a special code after the call, causing the number to be given to the phone company or police harrassment center. /john
DHowell.ESCP8@xerox.com (08/25/89)
The pro-Caller-ID people want caller ID because they want to block out the harassing telemarketers. The anti-Caller-ID people don't want caller ID because they don't want the harassing telemarketers to have their number. Why don't we just outlaw telemarketing and get rid of this problem once and for all? Dan Howell <dhowell.escp8@xerox.com>
clements@cs.utexas.edu (Bob Clements) (08/25/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0320m01@vector.dallas.tx.us> covert@covert.enet.dec. com (John R. Covert) writes: >I'm going to be as brief as possible, since this has been argued before. OK, me too. >These are the two most often stated benefits: [Skipping the first one, not a benefit to us consumers.] > 2. Stopping harrassing phone calls. >The second does not require caller ID to the end-user. As currently >implemented a subscriber who doesn't have a display can still trap harrassing >callers by dialling a special code after the call, causing the number to be >given to the phone company or police harrassment center. Here I disagree. Trapping the number to the CO may not help you at all. The problem is that the definition of "harassment" that the telco and the police use may not match yours. You may want to take legitimate consumer/economic action against an obnoxious "telemarketer", for example. Or in a case that happened to me, the harassment went on for a short enough period of time that I'm confident no police department would have acted. But I wanted to know the source and couldn't get it. My short-form conclusion on Caller-ID: 1) The caller should have the right to suppress the ID. 2) The callee should have the right to have unidentified calls suppressed, without even ringing the called phone. (Maybe the caller hears "Unidentified calls are not being accepted at that number" and gets billed for the call, of course.) I think that is fair to the caller, the callee and the telco. /Rcc
pda@gatech.edu (Paul D. Anderson) (08/28/89)
DHowell.ESCP8@xerox.com writes: >Why don't we just outlaw telemarketing and get rid of this problem once and >for all? Dan Howell <dhowell.escp8@xerox.com> Great idea! What about this angle? How about using caller-id to ignore calls from people you don't know? I installed a phone for my convenience- not the callers. Before too many people jump on me for this- I suspect that there are many of folks that use their answering machine to perform this screening function for them now (as I do). Most of the time, I pick up the phone, no matter who calls. But it sure does stop telemarketers and similar ilk who have no patience for the machine. It would be nice to know who's calling before answering. As it is now, when I need *real* quiet, I turn the machine on, put it under a pillow and turn off all the other phones... Just another thought on the subject.... paul -- Paul Anderson (w) (404) 841-4000 gatech!stiatl!pda (h) (404) 662-0799