from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Caller ID
CID
<communications> (CID) A short piece of text transmitted by
some telephone systems describing the origin of a call,
e.g. the name of the caller. Some telephone handsets can
display this. A {computer telephony integration} system might
use it to trigger actions on the callee's computer such as
looking up the caller in a database and displaying their
details on screen.
There may also be a separate "caller id number" giving the
telephone number of the originator of the call.
(2008-04-30)