Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!shadooby!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Speech on Telephone Privacy (Really Caller-ID Once Again) Message-ID: <2208@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 15 Dec 89 08:31:05 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 41 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 577, message 2 of 5 Michael Gersten writes: > * Grrr. That's two non-thinking replies to the same point I just read. > [...] > ANI gives no effective new features to end users. It gives plenty of > ABUSE to people compiling information and selling it. And thank YOU for your comprehensive and throughly-thought-out pronouncement concerning Caller-ID. I'm an end user and I can think of plenty of uses. 1. When callers talk to my computerized answering machine, it can recognize their number and give them an appropriate outgoing message, or even a particular message that I have wanted to deliver to them. Unrecognized numbers would still go to a general recording. 2. I am on call and my answering machine can page me. With Caller-ID, the machine could page and insert the caller's number in my pager, eliminating a confusing and error-prone step in the paging process. 3. A list could be prepared of "hang-up calls". This would provide me with evidence of how effective my answering system is in encouraging clients to leave their pertinent information. Also, I could return calls from those retiscent to leave information. 4. Since I have irregular hours, I am frequently sleeping when the world at large is doing business. However, there are some people that I must speak to when they call, regardless. Caller-ID would help my machine to deal with that problem much more effectively than it does now. Believe it or not, I will concede that there are legitimate concerns about the implementation of Caller-ID. But I will not stand still for one second when short-sighted people catagorically dictate that they can't see any reason why we, the public, don't need something they don't like. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !