A New Feature
Respectfully Suggested
by
Eric Bierman
November, 1971
1. INTRODUCTION
Basic telephone service has been with us now for a long time. Very few improvements have been made on the actual service during this long time. The last real improvement was the introduction of direct distance dialing (DDD), which is now more than ten years old. But even this was added more to alleviate Bell's operator recruiting problems than to improve the subscriber's service. Many new features are being designed and implemented more
b) as status symbols for the subscriber
c) for pure exoticness' sake and
d) for simple newness, than for any other reasons.
Some examples of this come quickly to mind, for example color phones and touch-tone. Electronic central offices claim to reduce maintenance and operating costs, but are no real direct advantage to the subscriber. They do allow Bell to offer some new but generally unused features. Video phone as it presently exists is a somewhat impractical service. TSPS (Telephone Service Position System) again saves Bell operator time more than anything else. Some of the Centrex features are of real value to the subscriber, but to a limited group of subscribers.
We can see, therefore, that only a few of the new features are of any real practical value to the subscriber. Some good new features are added only as the result of threat or fact of competition. Bell's data services are improving rapidly as a result of this impending or existing competition. Cable television sophistication is the next threat.
Bell must, in this more socially aware world, produce new features with real social value. Features are required that apply widely to the system and are capable of improving the "quality of life" of our society.
Futurists talk about shopping and banking by phone and even voting by phone. They have in fact been talking about these features for some time. Even Bell has boasted of these coming features 4, 5 and 6 years ago at its displays at the Montreal and New York World Fairs, However, these features are not here yet.
When people are polled on what they dislike about the telephone, a frequent complaint is the telephone's invasion of privacy; any stranger can "enter your home" by merely dialing your number. Bell even has explicit instructions to its installers to activate the ringer defeat option on extension phones only so that at least one ringer is always on the line. The callee can only counter the caller's advantage by having a secretary. Does Bell have an answer to this complaint?
2. A NEW FEATURE
The feature proposed here is that the calling number be passed on to the called party, in addition perhaps to some class mark that would indicate the type of call such as long distance, or from a coin telephone, etc. The uses of this feature are many:
b) Large catalogue firms or large department stores or in fact any firm could make available by catalogue or by television or newspaper advertisement, item and quantity codes for ordering items via the touch-tone dial. These large firms could terminate their telephone lines on devices which would record the calling number and then provide an announcement of instructions, then receive, via touch-tone the order, and perhaps verify the order with a construction of recorded voices, and finally receive an account number via touch-tone as a final verification of the order and as a "secondary password" type of check on the validity of the call. This latter check is a very strong one both for the caller and the callee and hence deserves elaboration. The store could verify the account numbers against the calling number before processing the order, hence ensuring against fraudulent calls. The caller has up to to the very end of the call to consider whether he has placed the order correctly or not, or whether he really wants to place that order. Also the "secondary password" idea eliminates the possibility of infants triggering valid transactions by haphazard playing with the telephone (which has produced some interesting DDD charges in the past.) With this security on both sides of the transaction, the method will gain (almost) universal acceptance by both subscribers and large firms. Note that the expense of the equipment lies with the large firm and not with the small customer, a large factor in the widespread use of this service.
c) The calling number provides a great improvement on the 911 method of handling police or emergency calls. Police could act immediately in cases where the caller is not able to remain on the line long enough to identify his location, in fact pictures of surreptitious dialing of 911 with no voice communication at all during threatening situations are immediately conjured up by anyone with a melodramatic mind.
d) Obviously a large number of malicious calls would be eliminated, and patterns could quickly be established for more mobile malicious callers.
e) Calling numbers could also be used by computers with public ports to reject unauthorized access in addition to the usual password safeguards.
f) Using the screening capability of both the calling number and, say, the caller's social security number, voting could be performed by telephone to a central vote counting computer. This implementation would obviously come somewhat later, when the fraud-resistance of this method has been proven in the shopping uses described above, but could eventually modify the form of present democracies by giving more weight to frequent referendums and less to political "representatives". The public could be tied more closely to the issues via special "public debate" television channels and perhaps some test of a basic awareness of the topic of the particular referendum conducted automatically via the phone during the actual "voting call".
g) Finally, of course, individuals could have attached to (or more suitably, have included in) their phones an optional read-out device which would display the calling number, hence giving him the option of answering or not. Further, the telephone company may possibly offer to screen his calls for him, to block or pass a particular set of numbers, since the called subscriber’s local central office would now have the calling number. Alternately private concerns could manufacture screening devices which could be purchased by the subscriber and attached to his phone to inhibit or allow ringing.
A natural corollary of providing this proposed feature would be the provision of reverse directories. Normal subscribers would be provided with one along with the forward directory, either for some nominal charge, or in conjunction with rental of the calling number display option. Bell presently is extremely reluctant to provide such a reverse directory or even admit its existence, although it is not clear why.
For an appropriate charge Bell would provide in addition to the periodic reverse directory, a subscription to weekly updates to this reverse directory. These would by produced by an automated process at Bell, assuring one hundred percent accuracy, and be used primarily to update the computers of large firms which automatically collect the calling number from the firm's order lines, but could also be used by smaller firms, such as restaurants, florists, grocers, etc. to use manually in conjunction with their visual calling number displays.
3. IMPLEMENTATION
The implementation of this feature systemwide is a vast change, but not an overwhelming one. Many local offices are already arranged to send the calling number forward on "answer" reversal from CAMA (Centralized Automatic Message Accounting) trunks to the nearest toll office. This ANI (Automatic Number Identification) function is inherent in crossbar and later vintage offices and is being applied at great expense to older step by step offices to prevent fraudulent DDD calls. This passing forward of the calling number could be extended to all calls in the local office.
In step offices the ANI senders which have access only to the CAMA trunks could be made available to all the outgoing calls, and to some appliqués, say between the second and third selectors, or even right at the connectors for intraoffice calls.
In crossbar offices, the senders could pass along the calling number on all outgoing calls and the intraoffice trunks could be given sender-link access to provide the calling number on intraoffice calls.
In electronic offices outgoing calls would be handled as in the crossbar offices, but for the intraoffice, or local completing case the ringing circuit could be arranged to pass the calling number to the called subscriber.
In toll offices, the CAMA point would use the calling number for billing and then also pass it on. Each succeeding toll office would then receive and send both the called and calling numbers.
Because of the mode of operation of the present CAMA-ANI system it would be easiest to pass the calling digits on answer, but for fraud prevention and one other good reason it would be preferable to pass the calling number forward during say, the first silent interval of the ringing cycle. The one other good reason is of course that the called party would prefer to see the number before answering, to decide whether or not he will answer. Also out of fairness to the calling party on charged calls, if the called party answers just to see who is calling and then on finding out, hangs up without speaking he causes the caller to be unfairly charged.
Sending the calling number during ringing is convenient for crossbar and electronic offices, where the digits are passed along from office to office on a link by link basis between senders and registers, finally letting the ringing circuit or intra office or incoming trunk in the called party’s office send the calling digits between ringing bursts, However this is a problem if the final office is a step office. Also in the originating office there is the problem of asking for the ANI digits in a way that does not cause charging of, say, coin or message rate lines. The first problem may be overcome by having the final step office ask for the calling number immediately after the first ring, perhaps by an off-hook flash, and the second problem could be overcome by adopting an off-hook pulse which would not be interpreted as an answer, but would trigger the sending of the ANI digits. This flash in both cases could be as long as 500 milliseconds, as there is usually a 1 or 2 second answer guard.
The cost of this implementation would be mainly increased sender and register holding time. There could be additional cost in extending the digit storage capability of these registers and senders, although this could be overcome by passing on the called digits before receiving the calling digits, thus using the same storage facility twice, and increasing the holding times somewhat again. Since this latter approach is already being used for International DDD, this is probably the preferred approach. Another large expense would be the provision of more ANI senders in the local offices. It should be noted here that as CCIS (Common Channel Interoffice Signalling) and other digital signaling systems are introduced these additional costs would virtually disappear. Also it should be noted that very little new equipment would be required; for the most part existing equipment is used in different ways, although, of course, quantities will increase somewhat, as pointed out above.
The feature could, and would, be introduced gradually, appearing first just locally in areas that are already one hundred percent ANI, or where there is a high density of crossbar and electronic offices. At some point, when a number of urban centers are already so equipped, the toll network would be involved, and from then on the feature would slowly extend as did DDD after its introduction.
At this point the calling number display device should be considered. The reception of the MF (Multi-frequency) or touchtone digits at the called subscribers telephone appears initially expensive. The current MF receivers are expensive mainly because of the filters, and would initially be purchased or rented only by the large commercial customer. But if the incentive were great enough, someone, either Bell or some enterprising electronic gadget firm would develop perhaps a digital MF tone demodulator that comprises one or two LSI chips, hence avoiding bulky, expensive filters and produce the calling number on light-emitting diodes, the whole thing powered from the telephone line current.
4. OTHER FEATURES
The last two sections have discussed one possible feature. There are others that are also required., When looking for features that the customers really want Bell should look at the present uses and abuses of the system as well as the customers' complaints. One frequent abuse of the system occurs when a subscriber does not want to be disturbed, Often subscribers will merely leave their phone “off-hook" to prevent incoming calls. This causes "permanent signals" in the central offices which are greatly frowned upon by Bell. Bell goes through great gyrations giving polite recorded announcements, intercepting by operator and occasionally applying a "howler" to awaken the subscriber. Bell is justifiably irate because the line does tie up a line-finder for a long time, or a register for a while, but then Bell provides this customer with no alternative. Some subscribers even dial a "one" to get rid of that bothersome dial tone and perhaps avoid receiving that noisy howler. However this only frustrates Bell more, in tying up a CAMA trunk, a revenue producing trunk. Bell now devises schemes to detect and take down these "sleeper" calls on CAMA trunks, and so the struggle goes on. Surely it's time to stand back and look at the situation. There are times when a subscriber does not want to be disturbed. The immediate Bell answer is "if we give him a way to disable his phone he will invariably forget it is disabled and lose many calls, blaming us."
Perhaps a good proposal would be to offer the subscriber a code which would disable his phone from the time he dialed it to the time he next picks up his phone.
This feature should be widely advertised, put in the phone book and be applied universally for no charge. With this code this state would be clearly differentiated from real permanent signals and if the subscriber forgets whether or not his phone is enabled, he need only pick up his phone and listen for dial tone to be assured that he is in a call receiving state. Further, as part of this feature, incoming calls to his line should be routed to a unique "not receiving" tone as opposed to "busy tone", to inform the caller that the called line does not want to be disturbed at this time.
5. CONCLUSIONS
In summing up, these ideas should not be passed over as impractical. They are certainly possible and feasible. Economically they may not seem entirely justifiable, but it must be kept in mind that the telephone must become more and more useful to survive.
The telephone has, to a large extent, replaced first class mail, but it may in turn be replaced by something such as two-way cable television. It is not out of place to point to the demise of the railroads as an example of a service not attuned to the desires of the public.
Even putting aside the possibility of competition, Bell, as a regulated monopoly may sooner or later be forced to provide services such as those described here. The consumer in our present society is making himself heard more and more every day, and the regulatory bodies are listening and acting.
If for no other reason, the idea, presented here should be seriously considered so that Bell will have a plan ready if and when the public does demand some of these features.
Nor should it stop here; Bell, in searching out new features, should not just look at how to make more money, but also how more usefully and more benignly to serve the public.
© Eric Bierman, 1971
Note:
This proposed feature was judged impractical and too expensive in 1971. Calling Line ID was first trialed in Orlando, Florida in 1984, again in New Jersey in 1987 and first put into commercial service in Memphis, Tennessee in December 1988.
July, 2006.
