Privacy Issue (ANI in SF Bay Area)

[Ryan Russell/SYBASE <Ryan.Russell@sybase.com>]

Here's something cute:

Yesterday PacBell turned on ANI on our trunk groups, for 
local area calls.  On their own, mind you, without request 
from us.  If you call anyone here with a display phone,
it displays your number, even if you have caller-id
blocking on or you do a *70 (for those who don't know,
ANI is not caller-id, you can't block your number
from being displayed with ANI.)

It also grabs your phone number if you leave a voice mail,
so even folks without display phones can benefit.

I post this thinking it may be of interest.  I actually
disagree that people ought to be able to block 
their number.  My feeling is that if someone is calling
me, they have no right be anonymous.  Of course, I
realize that this is easy to defeat with call forwarding and such..
In fact, if I call you from my work phone..you won't see
my direct dial number...you'll see a number for PacBell's
trunk group.

Now...I just have to figure out how PacBell is charging us..
if it's .01$ per call like regular ANI...at 100,000 calls per day..
Hmm...first fix is free?  A new PacBell marketing program?
Our CIO loves the new "feature."

    Ryan