The following news item was extracted from the September 28, 1987 issue of
Communications Week.
 
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                     New Jersey  Bell to Test Screening Service
 
                            That Displays Incoming Calls.
 
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     NEWARK, N.J. - Local telephone customers in New Jersey will be able to
screen their incoming calls in a controversial test by New Jersey Bell
Telephone Company, beginning in early November.
 
     The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities recently granted the Bell
operating company persmission to test a package of call management services on
about two-hundred-fifty-thousand local customers.
 
     The test will occur in six exchange areas in Atlantic and Hudson counties
to determine whether the services, called CLASS, should be offered statewide. 
The experiment is scheduled to last until September 1989.
 
     New Jersey Bell originally sought permission to test CLASS last November,
but withdrew the proposal in March for further study.  The telephone company
has said the delay had nothing to do with opposition to one of the CLASS
services, called Call Identification.
 
     Call Identification would let users with special display attachments view
the number of the person placing the incoming call. That would enable the
answering party to decide whether to take the call.
 
     Some groups, particularly the American Civil Liberties Union, or A.C.L.U.,
have objected to Call Identification.  The A.C.L.U. argues that the feature
constitutes an invasion of privacy because unlisted phone numbers would be
displayed on the attachments.  But some law enforcement officials hailed the
plan, saying that it would let customers evade and even trace abusive and
obscene calls.
 
     Another CLASS service, Call Trace, lets customers have the phone company
trace a call--but only for law enforcement purposes--by hanging up on the
caller and dialing prescribed digits.
 
     Other services grouped under CLASS include the ability to let customers
dial back the last incoming call whether or not the user answered it; re-dial
the last outgoing call; key in up to six "priority" numbers that will give a
distinctive ring on important calls; block unwanted calls; and forward calls.
 
     Excepting Call Identification and Call Trace, CLASS will cost residential
users four dollars per month for the first service and one-dollar and
fifty-cents per month for each additional service.
 
     Call Identification will cost six-dollars and fifty-cents per month for
residential customers and eight-dollars and fifty-cents per month for business
users.  The display attachment, about sixty-five dollars, is expected to be at
electronics stores sometime this fall.
 
 
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|     This new note on Telecommunications is presented by:  Empty Promise     |
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