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  1. #1
    William Brinkley
    Guest
    After about a month+ with Sprint customer service, I finally found out
    why my name on the caller ID shows up blank or "Unknown Name".

    They have allowed their (Sprint/RBOC) contracts to expire. The
    locals do not have to show the Name ID only the number. This is
    a cost cutting measure that has caused me no end of harrasment
    from my contemporaries since they know I had worked for Sprint
    for 30 years until I was RIFed on March 8th.

    So much for "complete" service from Sprint. Look for more bells
    and whistles and while they let the basic caller ID service go to pot.

    I do not think this is a smart marketing move!

    Bill





    See More: Caller ID Question - Why doesn't the name show up with the number




  2. #2
    John R. Copeland
    Guest

    Re: Caller ID Question - Why doesn't the name show up with the number

    "William Brinkley" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
    > After about a month+ with Sprint customer service, I finally found out
    > why my name on the caller ID shows up blank or "Unknown Name".
    >
    > They have allowed their (Sprint/RBOC) contracts to expire. The
    > locals do not have to show the Name ID only the number. This is
    > a cost cutting measure that has caused me no end of harrasment
    > from my contemporaries since they know I had worked for Sprint
    > for 30 years until I was RIFed on March 8th.
    >
    > So much for "complete" service from Sprint. Look for more bells
    > and whistles and while they let the basic caller ID service go to pot.
    >
    > I do not think this is a smart marketing move!
    >
    > Bill
    >


    I think your ire is misdirected, Bill.
    I pay my local landline company a fee to deliver caller ID *with name*.
    I think it's the RBOC's failure to deliver what I'm paying for,
    not a failure on the part of the cellular companies.
    I notice many of the CLEC's in my area still deliver both number and name.




  3. #3
    danny burstein
    Guest

    Re: Caller ID Question - Why doesn't the name show up with the number

    In <[email protected]> "John R. Copeland" <[email protected]> writes:
    >> After about a month+ with Sprint customer service, I finally found out
    >> why my name on the caller ID shows up blank or "Unknown Name".


    >> They have allowed their (Sprint/RBOC) contracts to expire.


    Huh?

    >> The locals do not have to show the Name ID only the number. This is
    >> a cost cutting measure that has caused me no end of harrasment
    >> from my contemporaries since they know I had worked for Sprint
    >> for 30 years until I was RIFed on March 8th.


    OK, let's go back a step here. I take it, although you're
    not really clear in your description, that you're making
    calls from a Sprint cellular phone to people with landlines
    and their caller ID displays are only showing your number.

    Is that correct?

    >> So much for "complete" service from Sprint. Look for more bells
    >> and whistles and while they let the basic caller ID service go to pot.
    >> I do not think this is a smart marketing move!


    I think you're not familiar with how caller ID works.

    The _number_ is sent along with the call setup, so the _number_
    is available in the same data string used for establishing the call.

    (This per FCC mandate a decade or so ago after the telcos
    kept paying games...)

    The _name_, though, is NOT.

    The way the recipient gets the _name_ is that the final central office
    right before the recipient (or, more generally, some system a couple
    of steps back) gets that phone numebr. It then does a database lookback
    at the originating _company_ and asks them for the name which it
    sends to the final phone.

    The problem is that the originating company _charges_ for
    this database lookup, so the destiantion telco doesn't
    like to pay up.

    It's highly unlikely (not impossible...) that Sprint is refusing
    to give up that info. They just want to be paid for it.

    So it's a contract dispute between the landline company
    and sprint.

    (sidenote: often the destiantion telcos don't do database
    dips with the originating company because of the price, but
    instead use third parties who charge less. And are less accurate...

    Kind of like the problems with Directory Assistannce)

    --
    _____________________________________________________
    Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
    [email protected]
    [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]



  4. #4
    Isaiah Beard
    Guest

    Re: Caller ID Question - Why doesn't the name show up with the number

    William Brinkley wrote:
    > After about a month+ with Sprint customer service, I finally found out
    > why my name on the caller ID shows up blank or "Unknown Name".
    >
    > They have allowed their (Sprint/RBOC) contracts to expire. The
    > locals do not have to show the Name ID only the number. This is
    > a cost cutting measure that has caused me no end of harrasment
    > from my contemporaries since they know I had worked for Sprint
    > for 30 years until I was RIFed on March 8th.
    >
    > So much for "complete" service from Sprint. Look for more bells
    > and whistles and while they let the basic caller ID service go to pot.
    >
    > I do not think this is a smart marketing move!



    You're angry at the wrong party, Bill.

    This isn't a cost cutting move on Sprint's part. In fact, Sprint (or
    some other third party) actually gets INCOME whenever the RBOCs display
    name information with caller ID. The RBOC must dip into a database that
    has that associated name information for each number that is passed
    through. And they have a choice who they can contract with: either they
    can set up individual agreements with each of the wireless companies and
    CLECs, or can contract with a third party database vendor like VeriSign.
    Typically, VoIP providers, CLECs and smaller phone companies will go
    with VeriSign, and you'll almost never see a problem there. But the big
    landline companies contract individually, for reasons I'll explain below.

    It would appear that ILEC in your area (I refrain from calling them
    RBOCs, as few companies these days are "regional" or even fully "bell"
    descendants anymore) is contracting individually with its competing
    carriers, and its contract with Sprint happened to expire. Typically,
    some companies (Verizon and SBC are notorious for this, Qwest less so at
    least to Sprint) will allow the contract to lapse for a period of time
    in order to try and strong-arm the competing carrier to lower their
    rates to dip into the CID name database. Until then, all customers on
    that wireless carrier must "suffer" by not having their name passed on.
    As most customers do not know the nature of the beast (and the ILEC is
    more than happy to deceive them about it, too), they tend to blame the
    competing carrier for not passing the info along, even though the
    carrier has that info readily available and the ILEC simply refuses to
    pay the per-name fee (in '99 the average fee was 2 cents per name... it
    may now be as little as a fraction of a cent per name accessed).

    You can also bet that ILECs have more "favorable" agreements (read, dirt
    cheap or even free) between themselves and wireless companies they hold
    a stake in. You will NEVER see this issue crop up between Verizon
    Wireless and Verizon landline phones, nor between Cingular customers and
    SBC or BellSouth landlines. You'd also be surpsied at how many times
    there are issues in opposing territories *simultaneously*, i.e. Cingular
    phones might mysteriously stop passing CID names due to "technical
    glitches" in Verizon territories at the same time that SBC or
    Bellsouth-incumbent areas stop dipping into the Verizon Wireless
    database while the contract renewal there is being negotiated.

    Typically, "problems" with passing the CID Names of Sprint, T-Mobile,
    Nextel, Alltell, the MVNOs and most mom & pop wireless outfits will
    linger longer because they don't have the same scale of landline-phone
    holdings (or none at all) with which to retaliate.

    Some ILECs will even purposefully insert the name of the carrier in the
    CID Name info rather than show the default "Name Unavailable," so that
    when their customers glance at the CID and instinctively ignore the
    number and see a company name instead of a familiar person's name, they
    will ignore the call assuming it's a telemarketer.

    If the CID name info is important to you, then I suggest you start
    making phone calls to the CLEC in your area, and throw them a curveball
    by demanding that they ebgin dipping into this database again. They
    tend to get very surprised when they discover that a customer knows how
    the system actually works. A call or letter to the PUC in your area
    wouldn't hurt either.


    --
    E-mail fudged to thwart spammers.
    Transpose the c's and a's in my e-mail address to reply.



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