Caller Id

Bell Atlantic Corp. made its money the new-fashioned way in the first quarter -- by growing emerging businesses such as cellular and the Internet much faster than traditional phone service on the way to an 11 percent overall gain in quarterly profits.The Philadelphia-based firm, which is the dominant local phone service provider throughout Maryland, said that on March 31 its cellular business had almost 30 percent more subscribers than a year before, while the total number of Integrated Service Digital Network lines rose 45 percent.

Bell to give refunds in Pa.Bell Atlantic Corp. agreed yesterday to refund $600,000 and offer new phone numbers to 15,000 Pennsylvania customers whose numbers were mistakenly disclosed when they called people who had Caller ID.Bell Atlantic said each customer would get a $40 credit on a phone bill. They were among the 160,000 Pennsylvanians who signed up for a free "line-blocking" service to prevent their numbers' being revealed by Caller ID.@

If you're a complaint desk representative at Acme Exploding Bird Trap Co.'s Baltimore office, you will soon be able to look at your telephone and see that your disgruntled caller isn't just 555-1234. You'll know it's Coyote, Wile E.Starting Dec. 1, Bell Atlantic Corp. will offer customers throughout Maryland an enhanced version of its Caller ID service that lets customers see the names as well as the phone numbers of their callers before picking up the phone.The Caller ID Deluxe service, introduced on a trial basis in Virginia earlier this year, will display the name that appears on the caller's telephone account, up to 15 characters, with the last name appearing first.

GREAT news from my telephone company! It came in the last phone bill."Important Notice," it said."Thank God!" I cried. "At last!"My wife's face, careworn and exhausted from endless days and nights of trying to persuade various telephone-company salesmen that we did not want to abandon our present telephone company and hire theirs -- yes, that dear but careworn wifely face looked for all too brief a moment young and vibrant once again as it had looked in...

Baltimore cellular customers will become the first in the nation to try out a new technology that will let portable phones announce verbally who is calling and give the customer the option of accepting or rerouting the call.GTE Telecommunication Services technology and Bell Atlantic Mobile (BAM) said yesterday that they will begin their test of GTE's Spoken Caller Identification service in February. Baltimore was chosen as the first site because Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland's advanced switching system will let cellular customers keep their own numbers, said BAM spokeswoman Karen Ann Kurlander.

The play is Howard Korder's '90s satire "Search and Destroy," which was recently on Broadway. Two anxious yuppies trade intelligence.Robert: Tell you what my broker says.Martin: What?Robert: Fear.Martin: What about it?Robert: He thinks it's going to be very big. He thinks we're going to be hearing a lot from fear in the '90s. It's going to be the Fear Decade. And he says now's the time to ground floor it.Martin: Fear?Robert: Fear-related industries. Blood analyzers. Viral filters. UV screens.

Love it or hate it, Caller ID is here to stay.And now, the nation's phone companies have gone back to Bellcore, the original architect of the technology, to see what it can do for an encore.According to Bellcore, you ain't seen nothing yet.The company, the research arm of the seven regional telephone companies, is busy working on a slew of technological enhancements that would greatly extend the notion of Caller ID, which shows the originating number of incoming calls.Elena Worrall, director of voice services for Bellcore, said researchers can tweak the original technology to come up with as many variations on the Caller ID theme as demand warrants.

In the cold war between those who find Caller ID appealing and those who find it appalling, Bell Atlantic is marketing a service that will disconnect callers who try to mask their telephone numbers by using an anti-Caller-ID service, also available from Bell Atlantic Corp.A division of the Philadelphia-based regional telephone company, Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Virginia, said the new service, known as Anonymous Call Rejection, might be so attractive that even people who do not have Caller ID devices may decide to subscribe.

WASHINGTON -- Moving to protect individual privacy in the face of new telephone technology, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed that telephone customers have limited ability to block Caller ID, a service that displays the phone number of incoming calls before a person answers the telephone.But the move is likely to pit the federal government against some state regulators, who advocate stricter protections for callers who want to conceal their identities when using the phone.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) -- Caller I.D. evened the score with arch-rival Salt Lake when he took the lead at the start and held it throughout for a 5 1/4 -length victory yesterday in the 78th running of the $115,000 Sanford Stakes at Saratoga.The victory avenged Caller I.D.'s defeat by Salt Lake in the Tremont Stakes at Belmont Park on July 5.Caller I.D., ridden by Jerry Bailey and carrying 122 pounds, covered six furlongs on the sloppy track in 1 minute, 10 4/5 seconds for his third win in four career starts.