jrc@ritcv.UUCP (James R Carbin) (09/07/83)
Forgive me for the delay in adding my thoughts on this issue, but I have been
in the hospital and only now am I catching up on reading the "news."
I would vehemently oppose such a feature as I maintain two phone lines:
one which is publicly listed in the directory which I choose to answer or
not answer as I see fit
and
another unlisted number which is known only to close friends, etc. I can
then answer this phone knowing that it is a relative, friend, or someone
else of importance such as a doctor, etc. If I were to utilize this line
for a call to someone else to whom I would not like to disclose my number,
by accident, I might end up doing so.
While one can answer my objection with a simple, "Well stupid, just look
to see which phone you are using," it is conceivable that a guest in my
home might use the unlisted phone without my knowledge and the privacy
of my unlisted number has been compromised.
Granted that such a feature might be of value to many, I would hope (expect?)
that it would be an optional feature that could be suppressed by the calling
party so as to protect the privacy of an unlisted number.
j.r.seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (09/09/83)
I think you missed the point. If your phone displays the number of the calling party, you DON'T NEED your seperate, unlisted number. With new technology and the new competative marketplace, I suspect that the number of available phone features will shoot throw the roof. Hopefully the price won't tag along for the ride. These opinions are my own, not my employer, the " ^G system " Dave Seifert ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (09/10/83)
Sorry, but i will want my unlisted phone number. otherwise I will be forced to reject calls from friends who are at other people's residences or who are at phone booths since i will not recognise the number. perhaps having a access code for my phone would help, but I am not plesed with this solution. There is a limit to the number of characters that my 5 year old nephew can remember, after all, and he might conceivably need to get a hold of me some day. On the other hand, there are certain local organisations -- one headhunting firm that is absolutely convinced that I will turn into an IBM Cobol hack if they phone me often enough -- that has the phone number of a friend of mine. They think that he would make a wonderful slave to somebody's airline reservation system. If they ever get my home number, I will have to get a new one, for while he is willing to put up with the phone calls on his regularily listed phone, I am *not*. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
davew@shark.UUCP (Dave Williams) (09/12/83)
It seems to me that the transmission of the caller's phone number
with that number displayed on a read out device on the receiving
end would result in a lot less crank and obscene phone calls.
In Laura's example of the persistent headhunter, they would not
be able to get the unlisted number unless you called them. While
transmitting the caller's number has its drawbacks, I think
its a good idea.
Dave Williams
Tektronix, Inc.
ECSseifert@ihuxl.UUCP (09/14/83)
If someone/some company sends you "obscene" material through the US mail, there is a form you can fill out which forces them to quit sending you mail. And you may define "obscene" as anything you please (e.g. junk ads). Why isn't there something similar for telephones? After all, its worse to get a phone call at an inconvenient time than it is to get an extra piece of junk mail to throw away. (my opinion) All I could find in the phone book (Illinois Bell) was: How to handle unwanted sales calls If you do not want to talk with a person selling a product or service by telephone just say "No thank you," and hang up. If the calls are "obscene", "harassing", or "threatening" it says to call your Service Center or Police Department. Occasional sales calls probably don't qualify. If they call obsurdly frequently, say several times a day, this would probable be "harassment". But what about a call every few weeks? Multiply this by *lots* of companies and you have a real problem. Sure we can all run out and buy a automatic answering machine to screen calls with, but is this the best solution? Why can't there be some way to prevent them from calling us, like there is with the US mail? A partial solution would be to screen calls based on the calling number. This could be done by a magic box on your phone line, or better yet, at the central office. The caller would get a standard message saying that the callee does not wish to recieve calls from them. This has some problems such as a company may very well have multiple lines it uses to place junk phone calls from, and you would have to "unsubscribe" from all of them before the calls stopped. And the "unsubscription" would have to expire after a period of time, since phone numbers change owners from time to time. Maybe there could be a magic button sequence you could use to activate a feature in the central office which would send a message to the last number that called you informing them that you no longer wished to recieve calls from them (the person/company/whatever) and this could have some sort of legal teeth to it. This would be the equivalent of the form you fill out to stop junk mail. Seems easy enough to implement, once everyone has electronic switching and the calling number. I guess I just see unlisted numbers as the wrong solution to the problem. You can still get junk calls on an unlisted number if they try every possible number rather than going through the phone book. Dave Seifert ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert note: the opinions expressed above are my own.
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (09/14/83)
So, since we're talking about some fantasy phone system of the future where upward compatibility isn't an issue, why not add two two-position switches to each phone: 1) I am willing to accept anonymous calls (yes/no) 2) I want calls placed from here to be labelled anonymous (yes/no) Typically, a place of business or someone who loves to talk on the phone would set sw1 to yes, but many busy private persons would set their residential sw1 to no. Similarly, unlisted phone numbers would probably set sw2 to yes, but most others would set it to no. Then, when the error condition occurs (called sw1=no, calling sw2=yes), the calling phone would get a recording "the party you have called will not accept anonymous calls", and the called party would never know there had been a call. The caller has the choice of moving the switch or not placing the call. While we're dreaming, how about some more status information on the phone, in the form of some extra LED's: a) The call is from a coin phone b) The call is long distance c) The call is from a business phone (as opposed to residence) d) The call is an "emergency" (so designated by the caller hitting some button before dialing) e) The call is for sales purposes (required by law, perhaps) and some alphanumeric info f) The calling number (for tracing purposes) g) Who the calling number is registered to (much more useful than memorizing everyone's phone number) h) The caller can optionally key in their name, in case they are calling from somewhere other than home.
barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (09/18/83)
Someone recently made an analogy between junk mail and junk phone calls, talking about a form that you can fill to prevent junk mail. I believe that what he is referring to is that you can fill out a form to get yourself off a particular mailing list. I think that most junk phone calls are not done from lists, but are just done by calling all numbers in sequence. In other words, they are more like the stuff mailed to "Occupant" than to stuff from mailing lists. If someone is calling you specifically because you are on some list then you can probably ask to have your name taken off the list. In the case of people calling you because your number was next in line, the only recourse you have is to hang up, which is analogous to throwing out the mail to "Occupant". -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
decot@cwruecmp.UUCP (Dave Decot) (09/19/83)
Please move discussion to net.phones (I know it doesn't exist, but what with all these Bell people...). Dave Decot