From: epstein@sunc7.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Subject: Re: capturing caller id data
Reply-To: epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:52:14 GMT

In <35021@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> edp@math.zko.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes:

>In article <1992Apr7.172401.10710@mdd.comm.mot.com>,
>gilbert@mdd.comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) writes:
>
>>Tell you what, why not take a moment and describe HOW you will use CLID to
>>get what you want.  Be sure to include calls from people you did not
>>anticipate, and ones from people you know, but are not at a number you
>>would expect them to be at.  Let's say the call is somewhat urgent...
>
>All calls from unrecognized numbers are left for my answering machine to
>deal with.  Calls from recognized numbers I will answer immediately. 
>This algorithm has the following features:
>
>Unanticipated or other-than-usual-number calls go to the answering
>machine and get answered after the person has identified themself.  This
>is a small inconvenience.

I assume you mean that you will pay attention to the message being
left to see who it was, and then pick it up if you decide you want to
talk to that person (I don't see how else you can do it as you
describe, after the person has identified themself).  And it sounds
like you mean this is a small inconvenience to the person calling.

The problem is that this method does not meet the needs of the person
who John Gilbert was responding to, or how they said they would use
Caller ID.  The problem is that you must still pay attention to the
ringing phone (and the message being left soon after) -- which many
people who want Caller ID want to avoid having to do.  Your technique
is only marginally more effective than screening all your calls with
an answering machine, or simply answering all calls (exactly how
effective it will be depends on the nature of calls one gets).


>However, for people at other-numbers, it is
>not much more of an inconvenience than dialing a special code as you
>suggested, especially since they only have to talk to the machine when
>at an unusual number rather than dialing an extra code all the time. 
>Further, this scheme gets unanticipated calls all the time, a capability
>that might not exist on the equipment that rejects calls from people
>without a code.

Well, you could simply have the calls from people without a phone sent
to the answering machine instead of being rejected (I don't think John
Gilbert suggested that, excpet perhaps because the poster he was
responding to said he wanted that behavior).


>It allows me to selectively decide who I want to answer calls from. 
>E.g., always answer friends and family, answer calls from the office if
>I'm in the mood, answer a call from a business only if I am expecting
>them to get back to me on something.  This capability would not be
>available with the machine you suggest; once a person had a special
>code, it would be difficult to turn their code on and off, even if every
>caller were given a different code.

This may or may not be a problem, depending on how many digits the
code has, and how one manages the codes (e.g. how many different codes
are given out, how many different people get codes, whether one
changes the codes every now and them, etc.).  This does get to be
complicated, but if you have a computer of some sort to manage it, it
is less of a problem -- and it potentially has some advantages over
Caller ID.

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.privacy