Caution: Unidentified callers ahead Phone companies fail to provide some IDs because of the cost of obtaining the data
By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff
Are you getting your money's worth from caller ID?
Some callers can't be identified because their information is blocked or unavailable, but in other cases the callers aren't named because the customer's phone company simply doesn't want to spend the money to obtain the data.
A small Globe test of caller ID accuracy found several instances where Verizon Communications and Comcast Corp. didn't provide a caller's name because they didn't want to pay the extra money.
The price is minimal on a per-call basis -- often a penny or less a call -- but spread across a telecommunications giant's many customers, it can quickly run into the tens of millions of dollars.
A spokesman for Verizon said the company provides excellent caller ID service, culling names from its own vast database and also spending tens of millions of dollars each year to access additional names from other telecommunications companies.