Restricted Phone ID Service OKd
The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a controversial telephone service that allows subscribers to identify callers before they pick up the phone.
But restrictions imposed by the commission drew strong criticism from telephone companies, and prompted one, GTE California, to immediately drop plans to offer the service.
In making the long-awaited announcement in San Francisco, PUC President Daniel Wm. Fessler said the “Caller ID” service would be offered to residential and business customers in some parts of the state on a two-year trial basis “with the strictest consumer safeguards in the nation.”
Commissioner Patricia M. Eckert, acknowledging the controversy surrounding Caller ID, said: “We listened to those who said no, we listened to those who said yes, and we struck a balance.”
Pacific Bell and GTE California, which view Caller ID and other such services as potentially big moneymakers, expressed disappointment at the PUC’s decision to force them to offer customers three options for preventing their numbers from being displayed. Those options, they said, would defeat the purpose of Caller ID and cause technological and administrative headaches.
“Because of these issues, GTE California will not offer (Caller ID) to its customers,” the company said in a statement from its Thousand Oaks headquarters. GTE California provides local phone service to more than 3 million customers, primarily in Southern California.
Michael J. Miller, vice president of regulatory affairs for Pacific Bell, which has about 13 million customers, echoed some of those concerns.
“We’ll have to go back and look at the economics,” Miller said, adding that it is possible the company would choose not to offer the service.
Alan Sabsevitz, a spokesman for much smaller Contel, which serves 340,000 rural and suburban customers, declined comment.
In allowing the service, the PUC acted against the wishes of Administrative Law Judge John Lemke, who in January recommended that the service be rejected. Lemke said Caller ID would have minimal benefits for a small number of users but would pose “an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of telephone customers.”
Consumer advocates were mostly pleased with Wednesday’s ruling. While maintaining that the decision was not perfect, an official with Toward Utility Rate Normalization, a consumer advocacy group in San Francisco, gave the commission high marks for heeding privacy concerns.
“If we were giving out grades, we’d give the PUC a B or maybe a B+ on this decision,” said Audrie Krause, TURN’s executive director. The group had urged the commission to reject Caller ID altogether.
Since Caller ID was introduced in 1987 in New Jersey by Bell Atlantic, the debate over the service has pitted the phone companies, eager to unleash new technologies, against consumer advocates and privacy experts.
The phone companies have contended that caller identification could help solve the problem of anonymous bomb threats and harassing calls. But their opponents have maintained that Caller ID could make it too easy for telemarketers to invade the privacy of unwitting consumers. Additionally, critics said Caller ID could pose a safety risk for some people, such as residents of shelters for battered women.
Paul Shultz, senior editor of Telecommunications Reports, a Washington trade publication, said economics, not privacy, is the real issue with Caller ID. “It’s a rip-off,” he said, noting that Caller ID devices generally cost $60 to $140 and that subscribers also pay a monthly fee. (At Pacific Bell, the proposed monthly fee would be $6.50 for residential customers and $7.50 for business users.)
The service--now available in 28 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada with a range of restrictions--would require subscribers to pay a monthly fee and buy a small box to attach to their telephones. The phone numbers of callers would be displayed on a screen.
The California PUC called for the phone companies to offer customers three blocking options at no charge. Customers could choose to block their numbers each time they placed a call, by punching in a special code. Or they could elect to block their numbers on all calls from their phone. Or customers could choose per-line blocking, with the option of occasionally unblocking their number by pressing a special code.
The phone companies’ position had been that per-call blocking, already mandated by California law, offered the most balanced solution to privacy concerns on the part of those placing and receiving calls.
In its ruling, the PUC ordered the phone companies to establish a comprehensive education program for customers before they can start the service. If Pacific Bell decides to go forward with the service, Miller said, it would be available in 1993 at the earliest. Initially, it would be offered only in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.
Although GTE said it was withdrawing its proposal for the service in California, the statement noted that the company hopes “the matter will be clarified” in Washington, where Congress is considering legislation that would make per-call blocking the most restrictive measure possible.
The commission also on Wednesday approved other proposed services that have generated little or no controversy. They would enable customers to trace calls, block calls from as many as 10 specified phone numbers, return calls automatically, establish a special ring for calls from certain numbers, keep trying a call to a number that is busy and forward calls to another phone.
Block That Call
The California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to permit Caller ID, a service in which subscribers can see a caller’s telephone number on a box attached to the phone.
Under restrictions imposed by the PUC, customers of Pacific Bell, GTE California and Contel who did not want their numbers displayed would have three free blocking options to choose from:
Per-call blocking: The caller presses the star button then 67 (*67) on a touch-tone phone before dialing. With a rotary phone, a call can be blocked by dialing 1167.
Per-line blocking: The caller’s number is never displayed.
Per-line blocking with per-call enabling: The caller’s number is not displayed unless the caller unblocks it on a specific call by pressing a three-digit code other than *67.
Default options: Customers who paid for unlisted numbers but did not choose an option would automatically be given per-line blocking with per-call enabling. Certain emergency service organizations, such as shelters for battered spouses, would also be given this option. Other customers who did not choose an option would be given per-call blocking.
Customers would be able to change their initial blocking option once without charge but would have to pay a fee for any additional changes.
Source: California Public Utilities Commission
