Caller ID Restrictions

[gbh2o]

After a night's rest and time to think a bit more, I guess the first question I have to ask is whether you are planning on differentiating how Caller ID is handled between the Codeblue/Residential offering and the Express/'Roll-yer-own' package?

If so, I believe a limited ability to substitute caller ID should be available for the residential customer, based on some sort of verifiable call-in-from-that-number system perhaps as mentioned above.

I don't think such a system would be practical for the Express service, just because of the much different target audience and probable uses. Perhaps just ensuring that each call at least has some valid caller ID information is all you can do to protect yourself. Or grab ANI information if available? I suppose the ultimate solution is to just simply _reject_ any call with invalid entries in the fields, and a "No Caller ID, no call" message to the caller. I guess that does away with Caller ID blocking? Wouldn't bother me at all! ;-) I'm not sure _you_ want to, or even should, attempt to play traffic cop since you have no real way of knowing the true origin of a call.

[fisamo]

I guess I still don't understand why you can't override the CID info. After all, if you can reject a call based on whether or not the CID is 'owned' for that user, can't you simply replace what the user passes with that CID info? That would certainly make it harder for a user to dynamically pass different CIDs (should you choose to make that an allowable option)...

Another question about this issue is in regard to providers who offer outbound-only service. What CID info would they pass if no DID is assigned to that account? In particular, how would they be in compliance with a "Truth in CID" act? If they pass 'Unavailable' and that results in them being billed at the highest rates, how will they stay competitive? (That's a rhetorical question, of course--I realize it's not voipo's problem. )

[john]

FWIW, a limited number of "Authorized CIDs" would work for me. But I still think the Express product should be handled differently than the residential product.