June 2010, Volume IV, Issue 6

Caller ID – Who Are You?
By Art Yonemoto

The Who is an English band, formed in 1964, with legendary rockers Roger Daltrey, Pete Townsend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon. In 1978, they released the song “Who Are You,” which hit #14 on the Pop Charts. The song has become popular again as the theme song for the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (the song makes a clever reference to the work of CSI, identifying victims).

“Who Are You” is also the theme song of this article about caller ID.

Popular Feature

Perhaps the most popular landline feature is caller ID. Despite being one of the most expensive features (up to $10/line), the ability to “screen calls” by caller ID is viewed as a great convenience. After all, when caller ID comes up with an unknown number, or a toll free number, chances are the call is from a telemarketer. At home, you just let the call go to voice mail.

For an office environment, caller ID comes on the PRI T1 D (Data) channel. Caller ID can be quite expensive, as some Long Distance carriers charge up to $400 for this feature. Competitive pressures have driven down caller ID charges, but it still occurs. Often we find the PRI charge ($400) is more than the T1 access charge ($150-$300).

Small Office & Incoming Caller ID

Many small offices still have POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) Lines. These tend to be branch offices with older PBX or Key equipment. Since things are working OK, there is little pressure to upgrade their equipment to new technology.

EXAMPLE: A branch office of 40 people, may have 12 analog lines.

In this example, the client has 12 lines in a hunt group, where the main number is 790-933-1500. If the first line is busy, the call will “hunt” to the next available line, until it finds an open line to complete the call. All 12 lines have caller ID, which will display the caller’s name and number.

Trimming Caller ID Business Expenses

Consider the following five scenarios to find areas where you can trim expenses:

1) Do you really need caller ID? While caller ID is convenient, does it make any difference? Specifically, will a receptionist not answer calls based on the caller ID? If your policy is that all calls are answered, then having caller ID is superfluous.

2) Do you need caller ID on all lines? In this example, the client is using a High/Low strategy for incoming calls, and a Low/High strategy for outgoing calls. Thus it is very unlikely that the last six lines in the hunt group will receive incoming calls. If this is the case, why pay for a feature that you rarely (if ever) use?

3) Do your office phones have displays? If not, then why pay for caller ID?

4) Caller ID feature on fax or modem lines is a waste of money.

5) Conduct a comparative analysis. If you have 6 branch offices of approximately the same size and equipment, you may find 2 offices have caller ID while the other 4 offices do not. If there is no discernable difference between these offices (i.e. caller ID improving sales, service or morale), then remove this feature.

Outgoing Caller ID – *67

For an individual, your caller ID (phone number and name) is automatically sent when you place a call. To block your caller ID, you must first dial *67.

Test this by calling your cell phone. First call you cell phone number directly and see what is displayed (name and number). Next call your cell phone, beginning with *67. It should come up as anonymous, blocked caller, or unknown.

Note: Using *67 will not completely block your phone number when you dial a toll free number. While your name/number may not show up on the vendor’s display, your number will be captured and appear in the company’s call detail (bill).

For a business, with a PRI T1(s), your caller ID is usually your company’s name and main number. However, there may be situations where it is advisable to block your company name and number.

Remaining Anonymous

If your business or organization provides a “sensitive” product or service, you may wish to block your caller ID. Specifically, ask yourself, if an unintended 3rd party inadvertently sees your name and number, can this create problems? Here are some examples where anonymity may be advisable.

• Battered Spouse Shelters – Need to protect individual and location.
• Law Enforcement – 3rd party may be a target of an investigation
• Health Providers – Sensitive health information may be surmised (pregnancy, AIDS, etc.) by the caller ID (type of health facility/provider).
• Divorce Attorneys, Counseling Centers – Other person may not be aware of your intentions

Remaining anonymous can also be appropriate for positive situations. For example, if you are planning to surprise someone with a Mediterranean cruise, then you may wish for your travel agent to either block caller ID, or call your office or cell phone. You don’t want to blow the surprise, when you are asked “Honey, why would XYZ Travel Agency be calling us?”

Note: Sometimes you will not be able to remain anonymous. An individual may subscribe or enable the Anonymous Call Rejection feature (*77 to enable, *87 to disable) on their landline. If so, your call will not go through and you will receive a message similar to this:

"The number you are calling does not accept calls from callers who do not allow the delivery of their telephone number, please unblock your number and try again."

Changing Your Caller ID – Spoofing

Many associate changing your outgoing caller ID as spoofing; a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage. You may have heard of various spoofing stories:

• Prank calls – such as sending a SWAT team to an unsuspecting home (prankster spoofed their residential number when calling Police, stating he was holding hostages)
• Harassment calls – such as making threatening phone calls to women and having their home numbers appear on their caller ID to make it look like the call was coming from inside the house
• Fraud calls – such as posing as your bank, asking for social security number, account numbers, PIN number, etc.

o address spoofing, Congress is in the process of passing the "Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010."  Under the bill, which also targets VOIP services, it becomes illegal "to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud and deceive." It is expected to pass this year.

Changing Your Caller ID – Legitimate Reasons

There are many legitimate reasons why an organization or business will change the caller ID information on a call. As long as the intent is not to “defraud and deceive”, these practices should be OK. Here are some examples:

• Call centers – If placing calls on behalf of different companies or organizations, you would include their caller ID. For example, a call center is placing calls for 50 different companies and you would like to show that specific company (not your company) name and number.
• Company’s toll-free number – To provide a single point of contact, you provide the same toll-free number from all offices. A major bank was deemphasizing branch contact and emphasizing their call centers. Thus all calls from the branches had the bank’s main toll-free number as their caller ID.
• Employee’s DID number – Instead of having a call come from the site’s main number (associated with the PRI T1), some companies will send the DID number. That way, the caller will bypass the receptionist and directly call the individual who placed the call.

Note: If you decide to send out the employee’s DID number as the caller ID, you may incur additional feature charges from your LD carrier. Since many LD carriers pass through regulatory charges based on the number of ANI’s in your LD data base, adding DID number’s can increase your expense by hundreds of dollars.

Check your Long Distance vendor bill for these ANI charges. They often appear as “carrier access charge,” “carrier line charge,” “carrier line assessment,” “access line charges,” or “service fees.” If these charges are over $250, you may be paying for your DID number’s.

Conclusion

On a personal level, caller ID is a very popular feature that allows us to “screen” incoming calls. However, in a business environment, it is more problematic. It can be expensive, so review your caller ID charges carefully. Also, evaluate your outgoing caller ID information to ensure it is appropriate.