Just set up phone two mins ago (setup was really easy). I tested it by calling my landline number. When I checked the caller ID on my landline phone, it read "Unknown Name". What do I need to do to make sure the recipients of calls place from my Vonage phone can see my name, in addition to the number, on their caller ID?
Obviously, we know about when calling a POTS line but does anyone know if Vonage would reconfigure a router to send caller ID name when calling other Vonage users?
The actual reference to Vonage caller id tags is on page 2 of the article.
I've had no problems by the way with my caller id "listing". When I was with SBC my out of area names would never really appear, I'd get the number and generic names like "Virginia Call", or "Company Call", but I was only paying like 43.00 a month for local calling, so what should I expect?
DarKev Vonage Forum Evangelist
Joined: Jan 25, 2005 Posts: 336
Location: Gatineau, QC
The information that is in the above link is completely untrue. I do not know where he would get that information. The telephone companies store the name display on their exchange system switches. When the caller places the call, the name is transferred along with the number. He's correct when he says a "P" is sent for Private Caller, and "O" is sent for "Out-of-Area" or Name and Number unknown. Those are the only two encrypted codes on the Caller Id string that is sent using hexadecimal ASCII. The call display boxes and phones decode these 2 codes, however if the name is available, the switch at the telephone company contains the name and send it along with the phone number. You could call someone in California from Canada, and if the Canadian caller had the name sent, the person in California would see it. Some telephone companies will default a city name based on the area code and exchange if there is no name provided. It will then intercept the absence of a name by at least providing the originating city of the call. This is just a bell and whistle.
As far as Vonage goes, I'm not sure where the name would be stored. Perhaps this is why the name feature does not work with Vonage. I know on the POTS system, the name is stored on the switch. The Telephone Adapter is similar to the switch on the POTS system. It would make sense that the name could be stored in the ATA box. It may or may not be easy to replace the name in the box, or maybe Vonage just does not want to be bothered maintaining it. Who knows! I know if you display the contents of the Motorola ATA by going to a web page and using the box's IP Address 192.168.102.1, you will see Caller Id at the bottom of the screen. Maybe the box only holds a phone number, and is not capable of holding the name. Contacting Motorola or Cisco would be a good place to start if you really want to know for sure. This technology is new. It seems strange that they would not have thought about the Name portion of Caller ID. In the early 1990s I worked at the local phone company in Nova Scotia. I worked on implementing call display with name features on some of our exchanges. During some testing, we would change the name display every few minutes to something different, and place the call. Immediately, no matter who we called, the name would show up. I called my Mom one time and changed the call display to say, "YOUR SON DARKEV". She saw it right away only 2 seconds after I made the change, and she lives in a different city miles away. The information provided by the person in the quoted link is completely wrong. It must be assumptions that he's made.
The information that is in the above link is completely untrue.
The link is actually correct, and I believe your information is dated. On the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN), caller id is kept in a database called the CNAM database, which is accessed via the SS7 protocol. Vonage, and other IP carriers, interface to the PSTN by means of the SIP protocol. When they send a call from your IP phone to a PSTN phone, the SIP-SS7 interworking only allows them to send along the ANI and an indication of whether caller id is blocked or not. While they can send along your name in the SIP From header, the SIP-SS7 interworking does not allow for that to be passed along. The caller id that will show on the PSTN side will be only the ANI, plus a caller name if and only if one is found by the SS7 lookup into the CNAM database.
When a call goes from one Vonage user to another Vonage user it works differently because there is no SIP-SS7 interworking. Whatever is in the display name portion of the SIP From header will be displayed on the receiver's caller id display.
DarKev Vonage Forum Evangelist
Joined: Jan 25, 2005 Posts: 336
Location: Gatineau, QC
Yes, I was talking about the PSTN system and how the caller id is stored earlier. This is what I thought was being mentioned in the link. It's hard to understand how this system is working so much differently. As mentioned in my earlier post, I was not sure where the name could be stored, and thought possibly it could be stored in the ATA boxes. So you are saying that the name is not stored there. It is stored in a device called SIP?
Does this mean that if you are a Vonage customer, your name will never be displayed when calling someone on a PSTN line? If that is true, that kind of **** because it defeats the beauty of caller id (with name). I'm glad that I can still receive calls with the name, but it is not good that my name does not show up when I call out.
"Hello Arn Thank you for your interest in our services. We welcome the opportunity to help Vonage with Calling Name storage. If they did store with us, your calling name would display on your outgoing calls.
The cost to store is free to Vonage. As we cannot store on an individual basis, we do need to discuss this with Vonage. Please let me know if you have contacts there. Thank you Tracy
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