Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: nvuxr!deej@bellcore.bellcore.com (David Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Caller ID at American Express Message-ID: Date: 28 Oct 89 18:18:31 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Lines: 65 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 478, message 6 of 9 In article , klg@dukeac.UUCP (Kim Greer) writes: > In article langz@asylum.UUCP (Lang > Zerner) writes: > >In article johnl@esegue.segue. > > >>[American Express] has been reported to have an 800 version of Caller ID > >Apparently, someone at Amex marketing thought it would be friendlier > >to answer the phone, "Good morning Mr. Zerner." A lot of people > >(myself included) thought it was pompous and not beneficial. At least > >one person encountered communication difficulties because he was > >calling from another cardholder's phone. Enough of these dissatisfied > >customers wrote and called in nastygrams expressing their dislike of > >Amex' use of the technology that Amex ended up pulling the idea. First, technical commentary. AT&T offers a service which I believe is called Account Match (although I wouldn't swear to it, and it may be a Service Mark if it is). Customers who subscribe to AT&T 800 service and who have an AT&T PBX can get a direct trunk connection from the AT&T Point of Termination to their AT&T PBX. Over this trunk connection AT&T will deliver the ANI (Automatic Number Identification) of the calling party. The AT&T PBX can then send the ANI to an attached application processor (which, surprise surprise, AT&T will be happy to provide) which will do a database lookup and fetch the account record corresponding to the calling ANI. This is not *exactly* calling number delivery; instead, it's a service built on ANI delivery. Calling number = ANI for almost all residential numbers; however, calling number != ANI for a large number of moderately sized business numbers -- ANI is the *billing* number, and many businesses have a single billing number defined for centralized accounting. Therefore, if you're calling from a Centrex line, or from a PBX trunk, the ANI may be irrelevant to the calling party number. (If you're calling from a PBX, of course, the calling number itself may be irrelevant unless the PBX sends it to the CO, and I don't know if any do.) Another note; I've heard that MCI is sponsoring/has sponsored an "ANI Developer's Conference". MCI will begin providing ANI to 800 customers in the near future, and wants to build a base of applications like the above to offer as well. In the anecdote I heard (from an unnamed source at AT&T Naperville), the customer didn't cancel their service; they just instructed their operators to stop greeting callers by their name and collecting their name *first*, so they would present the appearance of using the name to look up the account... This story also allows us to launch into an exciting discussion of bypass, if anyone is so moved... Like, I hear from sources that AT&T is offering ISDN PRI access from its long distance point of termination to customers with AT&T PBXs and trying to steal a march on the LECs... Disclaimer: AT&T? What do I know from AT&T? I work for Bellcore, and *everyone* knows that there's no connection between AT&T and Bellcore. (Hello, Judge Green!) David G Lewis ...!bellcore!nvuxr!deej "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower."