Customers of the Rochdale-based ISP Zen Internet may like to know that a small but useful change will soon make the provider’s Caller ID feature, which is currently a chargeable add-on service that shows the incoming number on a digital handset, completely free to use. But all phone providers will have to do the same.
Apparently anybody with a telephone line from Zen will now be able to get Caller ID for free from 1st October 2018. “Regardless of whether or not you had the service before, everyone will get the service for free from 1 October by default. You don’t have to do anything – your phone will automatically start showing incoming caller ID from that date,” said Zen.
The change is by no means unique to Zen and stems from last year’s ruling by the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, which banned providers from charging for caller display facilities (full details). Various other changes were also included in this to help tackle billing accuracy, debt collection, nuisance calls, complaints handling and support for those with disabilities.
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Rule – Provision of Calling Line Identification Facilities
C6.2 Regulated Providers must provide Calling Line Identification Facilities, and enable them by default, unless they can demonstrate that it is not technically feasible or economically viable to do so.
C6.3 Regulated Providers must inform Subscribers if Calling Line Identification Facilities are not available on the service they are providing to those Subscribers.
C6.4 When providing Calling Line Identification Facilities, Regulated Providers must:
(a) ensure, so far as technically feasible, that any CLI Data provided with and/or associated with a call includes a valid, diallable Telephone Number which uniquely identifies the caller; and
(b) respect the privacy choices of End-Users.C6.5 Regulated Providers must not charge Subscribers any additional or separate fee for access to or use of standard Calling Line Identification Facilities.
We can’t see many reasons why somebody would want to disable Called ID if it’s provided to them, but many digital handsets do usually offer a way to disable it if absolutely necessary. As usual it’s also worth considering that if providers suffer a loss of revenue in one area then it’s not uncommon for them to then find a way of recouping that from elsewhere (e.g. price rises), which is particularly true since Openreach still charge them for it.
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