ms6b#@ANDREW.CMU.EDU.UUCP (04/13/87)
For those who want more information about how CLASS systems deliver the caller's number to a handset in a non-ISDN environment, consult the following: BellCore Technical Advisory TA-TSY-000031, November 1984 "Calling Number Delivery" and TA-TSY-000030, November 1984 "SPCS/Customer Premises Equipment Data Interface" Available from: Manager-Information Release Bell Communications Research, Inc. 435 South Street Room 2J-272 Morristown, NJ 07960-1961 (201) 829-4149 Some quotes: "The Calling Number Delivery service allows the called customer premises equipment (CPE) to receive the Directory Number (DN) of the calling party during the ringing cycle....Then, depending on the options offered by the CPE, the DN is displayed, and or printed out. "...Calling Number Delivery service allows customers with Call Waiting Service to possibly receive the calling DN two times in the call sequence--during the ringing cycle, as above, and also during the talking state of the call. For the latter case, the DN transmitted is the DN of the party calling the customer while the customer is busy on another call. "Finally Calling Number Delivery service allows the called CPE to receive a four digit or longer Personal Identification Number (PIN) instead of the calling DN. The PIN would be dialed by the calling party as part of the calling sequence. Receiving a PIN would indicate to the called party that the call is from someone that the called party probably wants to talk to, even though the call might be from a line having a DN that would not have been recognized if displayed to the called party (e.g. a coin line)." "For calling parties concerned about the privacy of their DN's the capability is provided to allow callers to prevent transmission of their DN's to the called party's CPE, either for all calls or on a per call basis." The details of the data communication physical layer is not spelled out in TA-TSY-000030--in this report BellCore seems to be soliciting ideas from switch vendors. The link layer protocol specified consists of checksummed packets of asynch characters with a simple ACK/NAK stop and wait ARQ. Information can be coded as ASCII or BCD (specified in packet header).
jbn@GLACIER.STANFORD.EDU.UUCP (04/18/87)
The calling number delivery service was offered as "TouchStar" in
the Orlando FL area starting in 1985 or 1986. Supposedly all CO's in an
area code must be ESS before this capability can be installed. I asked
our local business office about plans for this service in the 415 area code,
and after some discussions was told that the number of old switches in the
San Francisco area put an all ESS area code some years in the future.
All current CO's have Automatic Number Identification so that long
distance billing will work, of course, but the question is whether this
information is forwarded beyond the originating CO when the destination is
not an inter-LATA toll call.
John NagleMCHARRY%BNR.CA@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (J.) (09/12/88)
This is a copy of a note I submitted to Risks Digest.
It might also be of interest here. I should add that
'CLASS' is a Service Mark of Bell Communications Research.
The telephone feature of delivering the calling number to
the terminating line is part of a group of features called
'CLASS', although there are other ways it could be done in certain
special cases. There are a number of Bellcore publications that
describe it in some detail. Among these are TR-TSY-000031 on the
basic feature, (TA) 000030 on the signalling between office and
customer terminal, 000391 on the feature to block delivery of the
calling number, 000218 on selective call reject, and (TA) 000220,
also related to selective call reject. TAs are an early version
of TRs. If you don't find one in a reference,look for the other.
There are several other TRs that relate to these features, but this
list should sate most of us.
Calling number delivery, selective call reject, and calling
number delivery blocking are all involved with the 'Signalling
System 7' which is just beginning to be deployed amongst local
exchanges, although some of the long distance carriers are much
farther along. Among other advantages, SS7 enables the transfer of
much more information between network nodes than was previously
generally available. This should allow the introduction of many
new network services in the near future. On the other hand, CLASS
and calling number delivery in particular will not likely become
common until large areas are cut over to SS7, since otherwise they
would not work much of the time. (Only within the local switching
office, or among those that had already implemented SS7)
It looks to me like a subscriber to calling number delivery
gets telemetry intended to allow display of the number calling
concurrently with ringing. I suppose proper customer premise
equipment could pick this off and feed it into a computer or use
it to determine what to do with the call, eg. route to an answering
machine only if not long distance. If the number isn't available,
as would be the case if the originating and terminating offices
were not linked by SS7, the telemetry sends ten 0s. If the number
is available but the originator is blocking delivery, it sends ten
1s.
Calling number delivery blocking is itself a CLASS feature that
can be set on by a service order or, depending upon the tariffed
offering, turned on or off on a per call basis. How it is offered,
if at all, is up to the local telco and PUC. The TR makes it look
to me like it is not available to party line subscribers. I think
there is a technical reason for this.
Selective call reject allows the subscriber to set up a list of
up to N directory numbers (N might be on the order of 6 to 24) that
would be sent to 'treatment' instead of ringing the subscriber's
phone. A caller using blocking could be put on this list after one
call by using a control that says, in effect, add the last caller to
my list, but that number could not be read from the list by the
subscriber. It doesn't look to me like the blocking code itself
can be put on the list; maybe somebody else knows a way or has tried it.
Call reject can be turned on or off also, and can be maintained from
either a DTMF or dial phone.
There might be something here for everybody. If I can block
delivery of my number and Mr. Townson can send me to treatment we
would be almost as well off as with Internet addressing from Bitnet
to Portal.
The foregoing opinions and interpretations are mine, not my
employer's. My interpretations of the referenced documents are based
on a cursory reading. They probably contain some errors.
John McHarry McHarry@BNR.CA (Bitnet)
McHarry%BNR.CA.Bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edujohnm@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) (09/15/88)
Another recent entry in Risks Digest described how a chain of pizza houses in Washington state was gathering data (including the calling number) on orders which were phoned in. Aside from the obvious business reasons, a justification given was to trap pranksters ordering unwanted pizzas for innocent people. The system was criticized because the business had the potential to use such data for follow-up sales calls, or to sell it to other organizations for similar purposes. Aanyone who receives obscene calls, junk calls, etc. would probably agree that the "callee" is entitled to know the number of the caller's phone, but this seems to be a case where the caller's privacy needs to be pro- tected. Perhaps the rules should be different for business lines and for private residential ones (i.e., residences can get the caller's number, but businesses can't). - John Murray (My opinions, etc.)
r-michael@cup.portal.com (09/18/88)
From: johnm@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) Message-ID: <telecom-v08i0142m04@vector.UUCP> X-Submissions-To: telecom@xx.lcs.mit.edu (Mailing List Coordinator) >Another recent entry in Risks Digest described how a chain of pizza houses >in Washington state was gathering data (including the calling number) on >orders which were phoned in.......... We have it here at MCI. It's called call detail. It's only with our 800 service, though. > .......Aside from the obvious business reasons, a >justification given was to trap pranksters ordering unwanted pizzas for >innocent people. The system was criticized because the business had the >potential to use such data for follow-up sales calls, or to sell it to >other organizations for similar purposes. Most businesses quoted in "Communcations Week" magazine said that that was their main, and usually only intent for ANI call detail. It is usually policy of the IEC's who offer call detail to deny credit for crank calls, just because of the type of service they are offering. >Aanyone who receives obscene calls, junk calls, etc. would probably agree >that the "callee" is entitled to know the number of the caller's phone, >but this seems to be a case where the caller's privacy needs to be pro- >tected. Perhaps the rules should be different for business lines and for >private residential ones (i.e., residences can get the caller's number, >but businesses can't). I would have agreed with maybe the first part of your message only just on personal views I have, but this is where I will differ from your view. I have always held the point that equal access meant just that, equal access. And I felt equal access should be applied all across the board. There would be other people that would differ from you point of view by saying residential customers should not have ANI available (now that is is becoming a reality coutesy of SS#7/CLASS), and just businesses, since a business customer would be more liable for their actions, and have more to lose than a revengeful residential customer, whose actions COULD be more careless than a business's. I would certainly hate to accidently call a person, who has just had a string of crank calls, and my ANI would pop up on their phone and they (being already pissed) assume that I was another crank call, start calling me with a string of crank calls. I would prefer a business that would (hopefully) handle it in a more professional manner. When I use to work in Trouble Reporting for MCI (I am in a different dept now), we use to get numerous crank calls, some of which were humorus (like the person who use to call up and call HIMself "Madonna", and tell us his life story), and some of which were very disturbing (like teenagers that want to discuss their sexual fantasies, which I found very disturbing). It would be very easy to get their numbers they are calling from, and either write nasty letters, or (worse), pass it on to the "proper authorities". We choose to ignore it, just saying that it's part of the job. (BTW, we dont use call detail on out customer service numbers just because of the sheer amount of calls that come in to those numbers, and the reams of paper/tape that it would generate). I am both looking for to, and dreading the implementation of CLASS. >- John Murray > (My opinions, etc.) The same applies to myself. They definitely do not represent the views of MCI, etc.... Robert Michael Gutierrez <r-michael@cup.portal.com><r-michael%cup.portal.com@portal.UUCP> <ucbvax!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!r-michael>