johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) (03/21/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0095m05@vector.UUCP>, jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) writes: > > ... What about international calls? At last, someone introduces some reason into this dispute! It's too bad that we Americans are so arrogant as to assume that the rest of the world has to conform to our need to know the calling party's ID before we'll answer, or even let our phones ring! Too many of us already assume that everyone who calls us is using a tone phone (and speaks English), so we make them use voicemail systems for our convenience. We screen callers with machines which pretend we're not at home, and talk about extra super-secret codes which our friends have to enter to get through to us. An answering machine can cause a foreign caller to be automatically charged for a 3-minute call (perhaps $10 or more) from some locations. Much of this is because of the super-abundance of tele-marketers and auto-diallers from which we suffer. Isn't it about time we tackled this problem, rather than devising even more devious ways of hiding from the outside world (both domestic and foreign)? - John Murray (My own opinions, etc.)
desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) (03/22/89)
>In article <telecom-v09i0095m05@vector.UUCP>, jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John >B. Nagle) writes: >> >> ... What about international calls? Well, you can assume that no matter what happens, you're not going to get calling party id from a German phone unless both the calling party and the Bundepost agree that they don't mind telling you. They take their privacy quite seriously. Peter Desnoyers