Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: "Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Caller-ID Segment on ATC Message-ID: <2459@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 29 Dec 89 05:03:16 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Yale Computer Science Department, New Haven, Connecticut, USA 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 599, message 4 of 9 All Things Considered ran a piece on Caller-ID services tonight (Thursday, 28 December). There were interviews with Telco people and with someone from an organization concerned with privacy. Most of the things mentioned have been discussed many times here. The problem caused by Caller-ID that got the most discussion, however, has not really drawn much attention here - but has quickly made itself known in New Jersey, which is at the forefront of the debate. It is common for people working with possibly-disturbed patients, ranging from doctors to social workers, to have unlisted numbers. In addition, however, many of them must be reachable by their patients in an emergency. The usual mechanism such people use is an answering service; they then return the call. Of course, with Caller-ID, the "unlistedness" of their number is quickly lost. Such calls are by no means uncommon - my sister, who is a surgeon, had to give up her listed number after repeated abusive calls from someone she treated in an emergency room. Now no patient gets to call her at home, period. The telephone company's representative presented some ways out of this. Some were absurd - call from a friend's phone (right, let a psychotic patient get your friend's number, YOU'LL sleep fine), call from a pay phone (emergency calls usually come in the middle of the night), etc. The rest - e.g., get a second phone line - all had one common thread: They involved the person involved shelling out more money to, you guessed it, the phone company. BTW, the piece as a whole was fairly balanced; if it leaned either way, I'd say it was toward the Telco's: Their speakers seemed to get more air time, and there was a lot of "gee wiz, look at the neat things this allows" to the piece. -- Jerry [Moderator's Note: There is however, something to be said for the idea that if you can call me at home, I can call you at home -- if you don't want calls at home, neither do I. Attornies often fit in this category: they want *my* home number so they can work at home at night; when I ask for theirs, they say 'I don't give it out'. Neither do I, pal. They take calls at the office; so do I. In this respect, Caller*ID helps even the score a little in favor of us peasants, doesn't it! PT]