BT have the audacity to offer the Privacy At Home package which comes with Caller-ID and are one of the worst offenders by shifting their own cold-call number to "International" where it's immune from both the TPS and the ICO.

John.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Councils and public bodies should do what we have at work, each desk has a direct inbound number, but all the outgoing caller ID is our switchboard number.

Sounds like the perfect solution. People will quickly recognize the familiar numbers and can safely ignore/block Withheld, International and Unavailable.

John.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Maybe they need incoming calls on that number, from selected callers.
You can use 141 on your line, but still want family and friends to be able to ring you.

Councils and public bodies should do what we have at work, each desk has a direct inbound number, but all the outgoing caller ID is our switchboard number.

The problem with that is that then the customer/resident rings the number back, gets the switchboard and switchboard have absolutely no way of knowing who rang them (especially with thousands of staff in councils). Switchboard get overloaded and customer gets frustrated.

Most blocks block them all, rather than separating into Withheld, International and Unavailable, so that you can block the ones you don't want, I have many friends abroad so cannot block because they would not be able to get through.

On the fritz Box it's either block a known number or without number, not really helpful.

Does anyone know the reason why International numbers cannot be displayed ??

In reply to a post by The_Voyager:

Does anyone know the reason why International numbers cannot be displayed ??

From the little I know of Caller-ID, the info is sent as a burst of 1200 Baud modem data between the first and second rings. I assume the UK data format is different from other countries' and there are possibly so many different formats, it wouldn't be practical for the exchange to try to decode them all.

John

In reply to a post by John_ON:

In reply to a post by The_Voyager:

Does anyone know the reason why International numbers cannot be displayed ??

From the little I know of Caller-ID, the info is sent as a burst of 1200 Baud modem data between the first and second rings. I assume the UK data format is different from other countries' and there are possibly so many different formats, it wouldn't be practical for the exchange to try to decode them all.

That's not the issue. Phone calls are not passed around the network on analogue trunks. The network is digital, with signalling typically using a protocol such as SS7.

In-band tones are only used for analogue end-users. ISDN end-users have caller ID presented to them digitally in the D channel, which carries all ISDN signalling, not the B channel used for the call itself.


The reason international caller ID is not presented to the recipient is because the data received from overseas is not necessarily accurate and, in particular, the instruction to withhold caller ID from the recipient is not necessarily passed correctly, creating privacy and data protection issues. Extensive testing was carried out in the UK to ensure withholding worked correctly before caller ID presentation became available to subscribers.

Junk callers go to great lengths to present spoof caller ID. I believe there are companies selling connections to the phone network with the ability to present spoof caller ID via SS7 as a feature. When the phone network detects obviously wrong caller ID, 'unavailable' is presented to the end-user, though unavailable can arise in other ways (notably calls presented by older equipment that doesn't include any caller ID in the signalling).


I'm going from probably faulty memory of information I've gleaned as a relative outsider in these matters. There are likely to be others reading who have more direct experience of these things.

In reply to a post by ian72:

The problem with that is that then the customer/resident rings the number back, gets the switchboard and switchboard have absolutely no way of knowing who rang them (especially with thousands of staff in councils). Switchboard get overloaded and customer gets frustrated.

This is the problem with the people who always dial 1471 and call back the number "just in case". People who do that should have an answer phone or voicemail and then the caller leaves a message with contact name and number to call back on.

Calling an individual in a team of 20 (say at a council) is useless, when any of the 20 can help.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 27-Sep-13 18:03:21)

BT Retail apparently charging £1.75pm for 1571 starting in January 2014.

I think Argos still have cheap answerphones, and you can get DECT systems with built in digital answering. (Me, I get everyone to call the mobile, unlimited minutes and free answerphone!).

People calling mobiles from landlines still pay a silly price. I'm surprised they go along with that.