Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Thu, 11 Apr 91 14:52:19 PDT From: Steve Forrette Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Per Line Blocking? Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 284, Message 8 of 10 Lines: 73 John Higdon writes: > To me, the term 'per line blocking' would be synonymous with 'no > Caller ID'. Why? A customer calls the telco business office to > establish service. After the vitals are exchanged, the rep asks, "And > which long distance carrier do you want? Measured or unmeasured? > Listed or unlisted? Any Custom Calling features? Blocked or > unblocked?" > "What?", you say. "Do you want your line to always reveal your number > to any person you call that subscribes to Caller ID, or do you want it > to never reveal it?" Now realistically, what do you think 99.999% of > all telephone customers are going to answer at this point? > So come on now, all you per line blocking advocates. Isn't per line > blocking just the new code for "no Caller ID"? Maybe it could be available on a per-request basis. They wouldn't necessarily have to ask you if you wanted it, but merely have it available for those who ask, much like 900/976 blocking. After all, why would the LEC want to encourage people to have blocking? Even if things were the way you suggested, it would not affect my desire for Caller ID, as I would simply not answer blocked calls. Actually, I would have my voice processing board intercept with a message indicating that blocked calls are not accepted, and that they should redial the call without blocking. This way, callers would know exactly what the problem was, and how to fix it. A related idea solves the "But what if they're calling from a payphone?" Since the Caller ID signaling standard transmits ASCII data, why not just deliver "From Payphone" when appropriate? That way, you could decide to answer all such calls if you wanted to, and still be able to ignore calls from unknown numbers (such as businesses or childern with nothing better to do). BTW, I was discussing per-call and per-line blocking with my Pacific Bell friend. He's involved in the actual CLASS tests on the DMS-100 switches. The *67 code acts as a "toggle". Should Pacific Bell be required to offer per-line blocking, *67 would ENABLE it for blocked lines, so that people with blocked lines could still call people that refuse anonymous callers. A third method, a "supressed line", would NEVER reveal its number. *67 would either have no effect or would be disallowed. This would be available in limited circumstances, such as for the infamous "Battered Womens' Shelter", where a person may not know that the line has per-line blocking, dials *67 to turn it off, but ends up turning it on instead. Even if most people had per-line blocking, I wouldn't have a problem with forcing them to dial *67 if they wanted to reach me. After all, if they are a Privacy Phreak to start with, they certainly could understand and respect my right to privacy, now couldn't they? And all the arguments against Caller ID I've heard so far relate to the commercial, boiler-room applications, not on residential use. Which brings up another idea: if there's not a big problem among the Privacy Phreaks about residential-to-residential Caller ID, why not offer Caller ID only to residential customers? I'm sure that the demographics of the Caller ID subscribers in areas that have had it awhile would show that a very high percentage were residential customers anyway, so telco wouldn't lose very much revenue. Unless, of course, what the Privacy Phreaks are *really* concerned about is having to remember to dial *67 before each and every anonymous, harassing call they make. It would be such a bother! :-) Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu [Moderator's Note: Thanks to all who have contributed to this string, but once again it is time to ask that the string be moved into the privacy list if further discussion is desired. Thanks. PAT]