Are telcos dropping the calling name ball?: "Accudata Technologies, one of the companies that provides Calling Name delivery service, is once again publicly accusing telephone companies of deliberately not delivering some calling name information to their Caller ID customers in order to save money. This time around, the company says it has research data to back up its claims, and it is sharing that research with the Federal Communications Commission."
Caller ID Delivery
Telephony's Editor-at-Large Carol Wilson talks with Accudata CEO Greg Smith about research showing telecom operators may be shortchanging their customers when it comes to delivering Caller ID names and numbers.
Caller ID Unavailable? click here to do something.....
"The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved legislation that would make it a crime for someone to fake their phone's outgoing Caller ID information for nefarious purposes."
House Approves Anti-Caller ID Spoofing Bill - Security Fix:
DALLAS – June 4, 2007 – When the phone rings, we’re pretty used to knowing who’s calling, thanks to Caller I.D/ Calling Name services. By digging into their own databases and sometimes a few outside databases, carriers claim to provide us with the name and number of whoever is calling. But there are many instances when we see “unknown” or “unavailable” flash across the Caller I.D. Box. Can that be remedied? Just what is the market potential for carriers to improve Caller I.D. services to their customers? That’s what Accudata Technologies wanted to find out when it commissioned a national survey designed to answer just that.
The research study produced some surprising results. By using additional databases, including the database owned by Accudata, there is a potential to improve Caller I.D. services provided by carriers from the current rate of less than 48 percent of the time to more than 87 percent.
“Our Board of Directors was interested in determining the market potential for improving the performance of Caller I.D. services that carriers provide,” M. Gregory Smith, Accudata CEO, said. “Based on the results of this research, there is a large opportunity for Accudata to continue the record growth that it has experienced over the past five years.”
The survey also highlighted how little customers know about their Caller I.D. service. Most Caller I.D. subscribers (57 percent of respondents) aren’t sure how much they actually pay for the service because it is bundled with their phone service. And despite the fact that subscribers are getting Caller I.D. only 48 percent of the time, just 2 percent rated their service as poor.
“These numbers are significant because they show us that not only are most people unsure of what they’re paying for, they also just don’t know that they should get better service,” Smith said. “They’re satisfied with their Caller I.D. service because it’s all they know. But what if their caller I.D. service provided a calling name 87 percent of the time? The research really opened our eyes to just how much Accudata and other databases can help carriers improve their services.”
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Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service organization launches consumer advocacy blog
DALLAS - March 13, 2007 - If you were paying anywhere from $80 to $100 each year on a service, and you found out that the service provider wasn't supplying you with the service 100 percent of the time, you'd be upset, right? Maybe you should be sitting down. If you subscribe to a Caller ID service, you're probably getting cheated. And that's why Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service, a coalition of consumers and companies tired of paying Caller ID service fees without receiving the service, has started a grassroots effort to educate Caller ID users on the truth behind "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls.
The truth is that while we consumers are spending millions of dollars every year on Caller ID services, telephone companies aren't necessarily providing us with every name they are capable of getting. Caller ID works by matching the phone number of the person calling with a name that is stored in a database. When a number is stored outside a telephone company's database, that company has to purchase the information from another company that owns the database where the information is stored. Most every wireline telephone number is stored in one of these databases, but phone companies aren’t accessing every number.
Why not?
Typically, purchasing this information costs less than half a penny. But these big telephone companies don’t want to spend any money on their customers, which results in those "Unavailable" and "Out of Area" calls that show up on Caller ID displays. And because most consumers don't even know that their phone companies are capable of providing a higher level of service, they're letting the phone companies continue to profit off of them by providing sub-standard service. That's the purpose for the Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service blog - it's time for consumers to take a stand against these larger telephone companies.
The blog offers Caller ID consumers information on everything from how Caller ID works to contact information for the attorney general's office in each state. The blog includes broadcast and print news coverage from across the country. In addition, it provides users with a forum where they can come together and share their concerns, opinions and experiences. The blog was created both to educate consumers on what they should expect from their Caller ID service and to arm them with the information and strategies they will need to demand 100 percent service.
The blog can be accessed at http://calleridunavailable.blogspot.com/
About Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service
Consumers for Fair Caller ID Service is a coalition of consumers and companies that feel cheated for paying Caller ID service fees but not receiving calling names. Every year, Americans pay up to $120 each for Caller ID service but only get caller names on 30-70 percent of their calls. The technology to fix this problem is already in place. There’s no good reason that phone companies can’t provide it. We’re paying for Caller ID 100 percent of the time. Isn’t it time we got it?
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