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From: microsoft!alonzo@uunet.uu.net
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Caller ID
Message-ID: <2230@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 16 Dec 89 08:16:40 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 579, message 6 of 8


We have been discussing all these problems with telephone
solicitation, caller ID, privacy of the caller, privacy of the
receiver, robot calls, sequential autodialing, etc.

Perhaps we should consider some kind of licensing arrangement.  This
way, the caller ID feature can display a license number instead of a
telephone number.  Telephone solicitors would have to have an
appropriate license.  Your phone could be programmed to reject all
calls from licenses of a certain class.  Privacy of callers is
maintained as there is no way to map a license onto a name or
telephone number without the licensees prior consent.  The receiver's
privacy is maintained because no one can make a call without
disclosing their license number.  If you receive an obscene call, the
license can be reported to authorities and the problem dealt with in
an appropriate manner.  In the meantime you have the ability to reject
calls from that source.

The key thing here is that one has a telephone number to receive calls
and a license for making them.  Most telephones would have both.

One can imagine the license encoding several pieces of information,
especially for commercial users:

1.	owner id		License owner
2.	service type		Licensed uses
3.	telephone		Sublicense for a particular line

The service type can encode such things as: solicitation, computer
communications, general business, emergency services, private
residence, local only, operator, language preference.

Use of a telephone for solicitation without an appropriate license
would be against the law.  Other license notations such as for
language preference and computer use can be on a voluntary basis.  If
you get a line for your computer it will have a license indicating its
use.  Non-computer users can reject all such calls.  There is some
potential here for dealing with phone abusers in a way more lenient
than taking away their service altogether.

You can imagine various special services such as:

 -outgoing only service (no telephone number)
 -incoming only service (no license)
 -licenses that are rejected by default unless specifically enabled
 -license as phonecard (with extra password) not necessarily tied to a phone
 -automatic collect call approval
 -automatic routing based on language

Alonzo Gariepy
alonzo@microsoft