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From: tharr!steveh@relay.eu.net (Steve Hamley)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: UK Caller Identification
Message-ID: <16544@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 29 Jan 91 15:21:13 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 79, Message 10 of 12


Andrew Bargery (esupg@cu.warwick.ac.uk) writes...

> Recently, I have seen some equipment for sale in the UK that displays
> the caller's telephone number before you answer the phone. How is this
> done? I think I read in this group a little while ago that in the US,
> the caller's phone number comes down the line (in DTMF) between rings.
> Is this true? Is a similar system used here?  Is it automatic or (more
> likely) do you have to pay BT (or Mercury) lots of money to get it?

The piece of equipment that you describe is a rip-off.

Neither BT or Mercury send Caller*ID information over normal analog
circuits and seem unlikely to do so in the future. The company who
market the device are very cagey about admitting this. If you want to
know who's calling and you're on a System X exchange then it is
possible to convert to ISDN. Alternatively, 'Distinct Ringing' will
soon(ish) be on the way as an extra 'Star Service'.

The Caller ID device being advertised works as follows. When a person
calls your number, it answers the call and asks the person at the
other end (in a badly digitised voice) to key in the number they are
calling from. It then displays this on a small LCD display. You then
have the option of answering the call if the number is one you
recognise.

The flaws of such a system are rather obvious. Not least the fact that
only around 10% of UK residential phones use DTMF signalling, which
the device needs to take down the caller's number.

                               ****

As a brief comment on another message in the Digest, CNN's Peter
Arnett isn't the only Western reporter left in Iraq. Alfonso Rojo from
Spanish newspaper El Mundo is also permitted to remain by the Iraqi
authorities.