Caller ID, Where does Vonage get their information from?

Posts: 55

Hi,

When I call a POST line with caller display via my cellphone, the number gets shown as xxx-xxx-xxxx Cell Phone.

But when I call my Vonage line, I get xxx-xxx-xxxx plus a name which is not mine, my wife's phone however shows up as me. I have called my cellular carrier to request that they change the information in their database, but as only Vonage provides a name rather than reporting only that it is a cell phone, I am left wondering whether it is a problem with the Vonage caller ID database rather than the fault of the cell phone service.

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:53 am Post subject:

Is your wife's phone a cell phone? If so it is likely the name is being supplied by the phone book on the phone.

If you do a google search for your number as "(xxx) xxx-xxxx" does anything get returned?

I suspect that a previous user of your number had it on a land line. Since mobile numbers aren't typically entered in the caller ID database Vonage may be picking up a number that has never been replaced.

The theory would then be that most carriers look at the source company of the call before doing a lookup while Vonage just does lookups for all numbers.