Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: 15 Apr 91 12:28:56 EST From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com 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 296, Message 3 of 14 Lines: 60 In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > "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? > Now as a customer, you order Caller ID. However, the rep becomes > uncharacteristically candid with you and points out that ten people in > your area have "unblocked" lines and suggests reconsidering your > order. > So come on now, all you per line blocking advocates. Isn't per line > blocking just the new code for "no Caller ID"? Maybe you are right, John. The phone companies seem to think so. However, as a residential customer, I subscribe to phone service for my convenience, not anyone else's. If you have an idea for an information product that is eagerly endorsed by potential buyers of the data and boycotted by potential suppliers of the information, you have a product whose time has not yet come. If the only way you can acquire the information that you seek to sell is to take it by force, there are some ethical issues that arise. I want per line blocking with per call unblocking that works from a rotary dial pulse phone before they start selling caller id (sic) here. I also want them to stop LYING and calling it "caller id" when it is CALLING STATION id. But, then, the advocates here in this forum think of it as caller id and describe a great variety of uses that work only when knowing the calling station happens to identify the calling party. Try this scenario on for size -- perhaps there is a teenager with whom my son logs hours of talk time per week. Perhaps he offends her so she refuses to answer calls from him. How do I get through for my one three minute conversation per month with her parent? There are four or five people originating calls from my phone. On the basis of relative volumes, her assumption that caller id (sic) showing my number identifies a call from my son is a good assumption. I can imagine a product that reads the caller id (sic) data and looks the number up in an internal directory and displays a caller name from the directory. Because the directory was entered by the owner of the product, it would show my son's name as the caller. Any time he was persona non grata, I would have great difficulty getting through. I really think that caller id (sic) is not the great boon to mankind that most of the contributors here seem to think it is. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com