gilligan@SUN.COM.UUCP (09/29/87)
From Communications Week, September 28, 1987: CALL IT CONTROVERSIAL: NJ BELL TO TEST SCREENING SERVICE THAT DISPLAYS INCOMING CALLS By Kathleen Killette NEWARK N.J. -- Local telephone customers in New Jersey will be able to screen their incoming calls in a controversial test by New Jersey Bell Telephone Co., beginning in early November. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities recently granted the Bell operating company permission to test a package of call management services on about 250,000 local customers. The test will occur in six exchange areas in Atlantic and Hudson counties to determine whether the service, called CLASS, should be offered statewide. The experiment is scheduled to last until September 1989. New Jersey Bell originally sought permission to test CLASS last November, but withdrew the proposal in March for further study. The telephone company has said the delay had nothing to do with opposition to one of the CLASS services, called Call Identification. Call Identification would let users with special display attachments view the number of the person placing the incoming call. That would enable the answering party to decide whether to take the call. Some groups, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, have objected to Call Identification. The ACLU argues that the feature constitutes an invasion of privacy because unlisted phone numbers would be displayed on the attachments. But some law enforcement officials hailed the plan, saying that it would let customers evade and even trace abusive and obscene calls. Another CLASS service, Call Trace, lets customers have the phone company trace a call -- but only for law enforcement purposes -- by hanging up on the call and dialing prescribed digits. Other services grouped under CLASS include the ability to let customers dial back the last incoming call whether or not the user answered it; redial the last outgoing call; key in up to six "priority" numbers that will give a distinctive ring to important call; block unwanted calls; and forward calls. In approving the experiment, New Jersey utilities commissioner George Barbour said the only way to judge Call Identification fairly would be to test the service. But the utilities board will investigate whether its use could be restricted and whether a beep tone or other signal could be developed to let callers know that the called party subscribes to the service. Excepting Call Identification and Call Trace, CLASS will cost residential users $4 per month for the first service and $1.50 per month for each additional service. Business users will pay $6 per month for the first service and $2 per month for each additional service. Call Trace will cost $1 per successful trace. Call Identification will cost $6.50 per month for residential customers and $8.50 per month for business users. The display attachment, about $65, is expected at electronics stores sometime this fall.
henry@GARP.MIT.EDU (Henry Mensch) (10/02/87)
Is this test scheduled for other areas?
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# Henry Mensch / <henry@garp.mit.edu> / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA
# {ames,cca,rochester,harvard,mit-eddie}!garp!henrydave@rutgers.edu (Dave Levenson) (01/08/89)
New Jersey Bell has begun offering ISDN-based custom-calling
services, under the service mark CLASS. One of these is called
Caller*ID service. It displays the calling number while your phone
is ringing. To use it, you buy (from the telephone company,
or from others) a device that is bridged on to your standard
tip/ring line and has a display on it.
Does anybody know the signalling method between the CO and the
caller-id display box? I have determined that it is in-band analog,
and sounds like a modem. After the first ring, there is a burst of
carrier, then some modulation, then more carrier, and then the next
ring. The data-burst occurs only once, after the first ring, for
each incoming call.
The modulation technique and data format are probably public
information, as you can (theoretically) buy the display box from
anybody. But where is the information available? Bellcore... are
you listening?
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Dave Levenson
Westmark, Inc. The Man in the Mooney
Warren, NJ USA
{rutgers | att}!westmark!dave