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RFC 3939
Network Working Group G. Parsons
Request for Comments: 3939 J. Maruszak
Category: Standards Track Nortel Networks
December 2004
Calling Line Identification for Voice Mail Messages
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
Abstract
This document describes a method for identifying the originating
calling party in the headers of a stored voice mail message. Two new
header fields are defined for this purpose: Caller_ID and
Called_Name. Caller_id is used to store sufficient information for
the recipient to callback, or reply to, the sender of the message.
Caller-name provides the name of the person sending the message.
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions Used in this Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Calling Line Identification Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Internal Call. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. External Call. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.3. Numbering Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.4. Date Header. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Caller Name Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Formal Syntax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1. Calling Line Identification Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.2. Caller Name Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.3. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
8. IANA Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
10. Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
There is currently a need for a mechanism to identify the originating
party of a voice mail message, outside of the "FROM" header
information. The telephone number and name of the caller are
typically available from the telephone network, but there is no
obvious header field to store this in an Internet Mail message.
This information is intended for use when the VPIM message format is
used for storing "Call Answer" voice messages in an Internet Mail
message store, i.e., the calling party leaves a voice message for the
recipient, who was unable to answer the call. The implication is
that there is no RFC 2822 address known for the originator.
[VPIMV2R2] suggests the originating number be included as an Internet
address, using the first method shown below. There are several other
ways to store this information, but they all involve some
manipulation of the "From" field. For example:
1. From: "416 555 1234" <non-mail-user@host>
2. From: "John Doe" <4165551234@host>
3. From: unknown:;
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
Since any of these is a forced translation, it would be useful to
store the calling party's name and number as presented by the
telephone system to the called party without manipulation. This
would allow the calling party's information to be displayed to the
recipient (similar to it appearing on the telephone) and also allow
future determination of an Internet address for the originator (if
one exists). Note that there is no requirement to store meta-data
(e.g., type of number, presentation restricted), as this information
is not presented to the called party and is generally not available
to voice mail systems. The intent is to store the available
information to an analog (non-ISDN) phone (e.g., per [T1.401] in
North America).
[RFC2076] currently lists "phone" as an Internet message header which
would hold the originating party's telephone number, but it is listed
as "non-standard", i.e., usage of this header is not generally
recommended. It also has no defined format, making the information
unparsable. There is no similar entry for the originator's name.
It is proposed that two new message header fields be included to hold
this information, namely the Calling Line Identification ("Caller-
ID") and Caller Name ("Caller-Name").
2. Conventions Used in this Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].
3. Calling Line Identification Field
The Calling Line Identification header ("Caller-ID") holds sufficient
information for the recipient's voice mail system to call back, or
reply to, the sender of the message. The number that is contained in
this header is supplied by the telephone system. The exact format of
the data received depends on the type of call, that is -- internal or
external call.
Note that for both options, the number field MUST contain only the
digits of the number and MUST be representable using the American
Standard Code for Information Interchange [ASCII] character set; it
does not include any separating character (e.g., "-").
It is expected that default, likely to be the most common case, will
not have any numbering plan semantic associated with the number.
However, in the case that it is known, an optional "NumberingPlan"
parameter MAY be used to indicate the semantic.
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
3.1. Internal Call
For an internal call (e.g., between two extensions within the same
company), it is sufficient to relay only the extension of the calling
party, based on the company dialing plan.
However, the support of longer numbers may be supported by the
enterprise phone system.
3.2. External Call
For an international call, the calling party's number must be the
full international number as described in [E.164], i.e., Country Code
(CC), National Destination Code (NDC), and Subscriber Number (SN).
Other information, such as prefixes or symbols (e.g., "+"), MUST NOT
be included. [E.164] allows for numbers of up to 15 digits.
For a call within North America, it is also suggested that 15 digits
per [T1.625] be supported. However, some service providers may only
support 10 digits as described in [T1.401] and [GR-31-CORE]. Though
it is desirable that an international number not be truncated to 10
digits if it contains more, it is recognized that limitations of
various systems will cause this to happen.
Implementors of this specification should be aware that some phone
systems are known to truncate international numbers, even though this
behavior is undesirable.
Note that the other defined fields available to non-analog systems
(e.g., subaddress, redirecting number), as well as the meta-data, are
not intended to be stored in this header.
3.3. Numbering Plan
In this baseline case (i.e., analog lines), no numbering plan
information is known or implied. However, in the case that a
numbering plan is known, an optional "NumberingPlan" parameter MAY be
used to indicate the semantic. Only three semantics are defined:
"unknown", "local", and "e164". "unknown" is the default if no
numbering plan semantic is known (and the default if the parameter is
absent). "local" has meaning only within the domain of the voice
mail system that stored the message (i.e., the voice mail system
knows that the number belongs to a local numbering plan). "e164"
indicates that the number is as described in [E.164]. "x-" may be
used to indicate enterprise or service specific dialing plans.
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
3.4. Date Header
The date and time may be included by the telephone system with the
calling party's telephone number per [T1.401]. This MAY be used, as
there is an existing "Date" Internet header to hold this information.
It is a local implementation decision whether this time or the local
system time will be recorded in the "Date" header.
4. Caller Name Field
The name of the person sending the message is also important.
Information about whether the call is internal or external may be
included if it is available. This information may not be available
on international calls.
Further, the exact format for this field is typically a service
provider option per [T1.641]. It is possible for the caller's name
to be sent in one of several character sets depending on the service
provider signaling transport (e.g., ISDN-UP, SCCP, TCAP). These
include:
1) International Reference Alphabet (IRA), formerly know as
International Alphabet No.5 or IA5 [T.50]
2) Latin Alphabet No. 1 [8859-1]
3) American National Standard Code for Information Interchange
[ASCII]
4) Character Sets for the International Teletex Service [T.61]
Of these, the IRA and T.61 character sets contain a number of options
that help specify national and application oriented versions. If
there is no agreement between parties to use these options, then the
7-bit character set in which the graphical characters of IRA, T.61,
and ASCII are coded exactly the same, will be assumed. Further, the
7-bit graphical characters of [8859-1] are the same as in [ASCII].
Note that for delivery to customer equipment in North America, the
calling name MUST be presented in ASCII per [T1.401].
As a result, for the caller name header defined in this document,
characters are represented with ASCII characters. However, if a name
is received that cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII, it MAY be
stored using its native character set as defined in [RFC2047].
In telephone networks, the length of the name field MUST NOT exceed
50 characters, as defined in [T1.641]. However, service providers
may choose to further limit this to 15 characters for delivery to
customer equipment, e.g., [T1.401] and [GR-1188-CORE].
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
5. Formal Syntax
Both Calling Line Identification and Caller Name follow the syntax
specification using the augmented Backus-Naur Form (BNF) as described
in [RFC2234]. While the semantics of these headers are defined in
sections 4 and 5, the syntax uses the 'unstructured' token defined in
[RFC2822]:
unstructured = *([FWS] utext) [FWS]
5.1. Calling Line Identification Syntax
"Caller-ID" ":" 1*DIGIT [ "," "NumberingPlan="
( "unknown" / "local" / "e164" / ietf-token / x-token ) ] CRLF
ietf-token := <An extension token defined by a
standards-track RFC and registered
with IANA.>
x-token := <The two characters "X-" or "x-" followed, with
no intervening white space, by any token>
5.2. Caller Name Syntax
"Caller-Name" ":" unstructured CRLF
5.3. Examples
To: +19725551212@vm1.example.com
Caller-ID: 6137684087
Caller-Name: Derrick Dunne
To: 6137637582@example.com
Caller-ID: 6139416900
Caller-Name: Jean Chretien
6. Other Considerations
6.1. Compatibility with Other Internet Phone Numbers
The intent of these headers are to record telephone number that is
sent by the analog phone system with an incoming call without
alteration or interpretation. If sufficient semantic is known or can
be inferred, this may be included in the NumberingPlan field. This
may allow it to be later translated into an addressable phone number.
Addressable or dialable phone numbers (which this document does not
define) are defined in other documents, such as GSTN address
[RFC3191] or telephone URL [RFC2806].
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
6.2. Usage
There are a few scenarios of how this mechanism may fail that must be
considered. The first is mentioned in section 3.2 - the truncation
of an international number to 10 digits. This could result in a
misinterpretation of the resulting number. For instance, an
international number (e.g., from Ireland) of the form "353 91 73
3307" could be truncated to "53 91 73 3307" if received in North
America, and interpreted as "539 917 3307" - a seemingly "North
American" style number. Thus, the recipient is left with incorrect
information to reply to the message, possibly with an annoyed callee
at the North American number.
The second scenario is the possibility of sending an internal
extension to an external recipient when a Call Answer message is
forwarded. This poses two problems, the recipient is given the wrong
phone number, and the company's dialing plan could be exposed.
The final concern deals with exercising character options that are
available in coding the Calling Name field. An international system
may send a message with coding options that are not available on the
receiving system, thus giving the recipient an incorrect Caller Name.
7. Security Considerations
Note that unlisted and restricted numbers are not a concern as these
header fields are defined to contain what the called party would see
(e.g., 'Private Name'), as opposed to the complete details exchanged
between service providers.
However, it must also be noted that this mechanism allows the
explicit indication of phone numbers in the headers of an email
message (used to store voice messages). While the rationale for this
is reviewed in section 1, the recipient of this message may not be
aware that this information is contained in the headers unless the
user's client presents the information. Its use is intended to be
informative as it is when it appears on a telephone screen.
8. IANA Considerations
This document defines an IANA-administered registration space for
Caller-ID numbering plans in section 5.1. Each registry entry
consists of an identifying token and a short textual description of
the entry. There are three initial entries in this registry:
unknown - The number's semantics are unknown. This value is the
default in the absence of this parameter.
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
local - The number only has meaning within the domain of the
sending system identified by the RFC 2822 From field of
the message.
e164 - The number's semantics are described in [E.164].
The only way to add additional entries (ietf-token in section 5.1) to
this registry is with a standards-track RFC.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[VPIMV2R2] Vaudreuil, G. and G. Parsons, "Voice Profile for
Internet Mail - version 2 (VPIMv2)", RFC 3801, June
2004.
[RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for
Non-ASCII Text ", RFC 2047, November 1996.
[RFC2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822,
April 2001.
[RFC2234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
9.2. Informative References
[RFC2076] Palme, J., "Common Internet Message Headers", RFC
2076, February 1997.
[E.164] ITU-T Recommendation E.164 (1997), "The international
public telecommunication numbering plan"
[T.50] ITU-T Recommendation T.50 (1992), "International
Reference Alphabet (IRA)"
[T.61] CCITT Recommendation T.61 (1988) (Withdrawn),
"Character Repertoire and Coded Character Sets for the
International Teletex Service"
Parsons & Maruszak Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
[8859-1] ISO/IEC International Standard 8859-1 (1998),
Information Technology _ 8-bit single-byte coded
graphic character sets _ Part 1: Latin Alphabet No. 1
[ASCII] American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Coded
Character Set - 7-Bit American National Standard Code
for Information Interchange, ANSI X3.4, 1986.
[T1.401] American National Standards Institute (ANSI),
Telecommunications _ Network-to-Customer Installation
Interfaces _ Analog Voicegrade Switched Access Lines
with Calling Number Delivery, Calling Name Delivery,
or Visual Message-Waiting Indicator Features, ANSI
T1.6401.03-1998
[T1.625] American National Standards Institute (ANSI),
Telecommunications - Integrated Services Digital
Network (ISDN) _ Calling Line identification
Presentation and Restriction Supplementary Services,
ANSI T1.625-1993
[T1.641] American National Standards Institute (ANSI),
Telecommunications - Calling Name Identification
Presentation, ANSI T1.641-1995
[GR-1188-CORE] Telcordia Technologies, "CLASS Feature: Calling Name
Delivery Generic Requirements", GR-1188-CORE, Issue 2,
December 2000
[GR-31-CORE] Telcordia Technologies, "CLASS Feature: Calling Number
Delivery", GR-31-CORE, Issue 1, June 2000
[RFC3191] Allocchio, C., "Minimal GSTN address format in
Internet Mail", RFC 3191, October 2001.
[RFC2806] Vaha-Sipila, A., "URLs for Telephone Calls", RFC 2806,
April 2000.
10. Acknowledgments
The previous authors of versions of this document were Derrick Dunne
and Jason Collins. The current authors would like to thank Derrick
and Jason for their contributions.
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RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
Authors' Addresses
Glenn Parsons
Nortel Networks
P.O. Box 3511, Station C
Ottawa, ON K1Y 4H7
Phone: +1-613-763-7582
EMail: gparsons@nortelnetworks.com
Janusz Maruszak
Phone: +1-416-885-0221
EMail: jjmaruszak@sympatico.ca
Parsons & Maruszak Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 3939 Calling Line Identification December 2004
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
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This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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Parsons & Maruszak Standards Track [Page 11]
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