SAN FRANCISCO—Verizon Wireless was an early opponent to proposals for a wireless phone number directory. Now it can offer a version of caller ID that gives customers a clue as to who’s calling without giving out phone numbers.
Verizon Wireless is now offering City ID on the LG Voyager. It displays the city and state where an incoming phone number is registered. The announcement is another big win for application provider Cequint, which first launched it with Alltel Wireless.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Verizon and are continuing to see strong demand for City ID with the Voyager,” said Cequint CEO Rick Hennessey. “We appreciate Verizon’s commitment to innovation and their understanding that empowering subscribers isn’t just about next-generation services – it’s also about improving the daily voice experience with enhancements to the basics like Caller ID and voice mail.”
Hennessey and other Cequint executives in the past have described Cequint’s City ID as a simple solution to a complex problem. It addresses what they call the “mental gymnastics” that people go through when they see an incoming number. While the recipient of a call might look at an incoming number and area code to determine who might be calling, the display of the city and state can cut down on the guesswork. Even seeing a specific town in a large metro area can help narrow it down considerably, yet it’s not so intrusive as to invade someone’s privacy, they say.
The application is based on where a phone number was registered, so it won’t reconfigure the location for someone who has moved cross country and kept their same wireless phone number. But if a caller has told someone that they recently moved, that’s often enough for a recipient to decipher and figure out who’s calling.
Verizon Wireless customers purchasing the Voyager will receive a complimentary 15-day trial of the City ID application beginning with their first incoming call. After that, customers can subscribe to City ID for $1.99 monthly access per line. City ID comes preloaded on new Voyagers; customers with existing Voyagers can take their phones to a Verizon Wireless Communications Store to receive the free software update. Verizon Wireless said it expects to offer City ID on additional devices in the coming months.