Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 12:10:22 GMT
From: bharrell@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (Ben Harrell)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Pacific Bell and CNID
Organization: North Carolina State University
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 630, Message 3 of 5

tshapin@beckman.com (Ted Shapin) posted a publicity release for an
organization as follows:

> From: Nikki Draper <draper@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
> Subject: CNID press release
> Sender: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

>          PACIFIC BELL'S  PHONE PRIVACY RINGS FALSE, SAYS
>          COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY


> PALO ALTO, Calif., August 10, 1992 -- Computer Professionals for
> Social Responsibility (CPSR), a national alliance of professionals
> concerned with the impact of technology on society based here,
> expressed deep concern over Pacific Bell'sttempt to gut a recent
> California Public Utility Commission (PUC) order on Calling-Number
> Identification (CNID).  Pacific Bell has requested a rehearing on the
> PUC restrictions.  PacBell's proposal will eliminate important safety
> and privacy protections in the Commission's order, CPSR charged.  CNID
> allows businesses to collect the phone numbers of customers who call

        <many similar paragraphs deleted>

I am really getting tired of seeing such press releases from people
and organizations who have seized upon the political issue of personal
privacy to beat up on the local telephone companies over trying to
offer calling line identification.  If they would do just a little bit
of basic research, they would know that there has never been any
privacy of single party residential service in the US since AT&T
started offering automatic number identification (ANI) service with
their 800 Service offering and other IXC followed suit.

Yes I know that ANI and CLID are not the same thing.  ANI is the
identification of the originating billing number, whereas CLID is the
identification of the originating line number.  However, for the vast
majority of residential customers in the US, these are identical.  So
anytime you make an interexchange call using a long distance carrier
other than the local telco, your orginating number will be delivered
to any AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc. terminating customer who subscribes to
their ANI service.

There are no rules, federal or state that prevent this from occuring.
Also, the local telcos are obligated by their inter-LATA access
tariffs to provide ANI to the carrier, if they request it.

This is a BIG money maker for the IXCs (one cent per number
delivered), and a major advantage to the IXC offerings over the local
telco terminating business service offerings.

CLASS CLID levels the LEC/IXC competitive playing field a little bit.
As long as there are no restrictions on the delivery of ANI anywhere
in the US be IXCs, I don't think there should any restricts on CLID
either.

Don't think I am a radical on this point however.  I do think there
should be SOME limits on the delivery of ANI/CLID.  I just do not
believe it is competitively fair to the local telcos to put such
restrictions in place for CLID, when there are none for ANI.

<stepping down form soap box>


Ben Harrell   bharrell@catt.ncsu.edu