[viraptor]

Telco billing records are very detailed. They can identify the call from the time it reached you and know who initiated it (their customer or some specific other telco). The fact you see the originating number is irrelevant to the telco and shouldn't matter for any applicable law.

To sue someone, the court would still need to ask the telco about the owner of the number. Right now they would need to ask for the initiator of a call to XYZ at 12:34. Seeing the number doesn't change anything.

[lemcoe9]

This is not completely true. Especially in VoIP, there are usually 1-5 layers of FCC-licensed phone companies involved in the call. The CLEC (Bandwidth, Level 3, AT&T, Comcast, et al) sell their numbers to Class 3 ITSPs like Flowroute, SIP.US, VOIP.ms, SIPSTATION, Twilio, etc, and then frequently that service is once again sold to another vendor that might have an actual end-user using the service. Just because one company's switch says "where the call came from" does not mean anything related to the actual calling party.

[viraptor]

You're completely right. I didn't mean it's going to be a single step. If the answer is: it came from another telco X, you ask them. And repeat.

[MichaelApproved]

Getting those records would likely require a lawyer and that would require a lot of spam calls. I'm talking about suing in small claims court which would be more likely for most people. Having a true caller ID would put a critical document directly in the citizens hands.