Outbound Caller ID

[Reelmower]

All of a sudden my outbound caller ID is showing anonymous.  Any suggestions on how to fix this?  I have an Obi 200 with Google Voice.

[IsaacJones]

Hi Same here. Any help?

[IsaacJones]

Actually i have a OBI 202 model

[SteveInWA]

This happens when you have either configured the wrong Google/Gmail/GV account on your OBi (an account that does not have its own, inbound Google Voice telephone number), or the Google Voice number on that account was deleted or reclaimed.

Sign into your Google Voice account on a laptop/desktop web browser, not on a phone or tablet.  Go here:

https://voice.google.com/settings

Confirm that you see your Google Voice phone number at the top of the page.  If not, AND you can still call that number from some other phone number, and the number rings, then you are looking at the wrong Google account.  If you don't see the number, and it does not ring, then the number was deleted or reclaimed.

[Babz]

I have been researching the topic of Outbound Caller ID, and from what I'm reading, we have no control over how we appear on someone's caller ID. Caller ID is determined by the settings of the telephone service belonging to the person answering the call. Each telephone company maintains a list and assigns the caller ID according to that list. Thus, if I call three different people my Caller ID may show up as three different things on each person's phone. Could be a city, state, or a name. And it can change over time as companies update their list. For example, on my landline phone, over the years I've seen one caller's ID change from Last Name, First, to First Name Last, to a City, State over time.

Google Voice does not subscribe to these lists for either incoming or outgoing caller ID. Therefore, every incoming call we OBi users see is "out of area," unless we add the person as a Contact in Google Contacts. Even then, that only changes what displays on the OBi Phone. When checking your GV voice mail via a web browser, or via dial in on a phone, you don't get the names, only the phone numbers.

And as far as I know, we have no control over how our outgoing phone number appears to people that we call. That is set by their phone service list, or by their contact list. Unless there is some Google Voice setting of which I am unaware. Would love to know more about this.

[SteveInWA]

That's sort of correct.  Without getting into an essay on Caller ID (CLID, the numeric part, or CNAM, the alpha part), and how it can work differently with VoIP vs. POTS,  the telco industry maintains a "LIDB" (Line Information Database), containing, among other things, names matched to subscribers' telephone numbers.  Most landline, and (as far as I remember) two of the big four mobile carriers, allow their customers to specify the name that they will feed into the LIDB.  When you place an outbound call, the telco providing the called party's service queries the LIDB.  If your name is in there, they'll send it to their subscriber's phone.  If your name is not in there, the called party's carrier can do whatever they want.  Typically, they'll send some generic information, based on the geographic location of the calling number, like "Boston MA" or "Kansas".  Others send "Unknown caller" or a similar phrase.

Google neither feeds its users names into the LIDB, nor does it "dip into" the LIDB on inbound calls.  However, for INbound calls, if you happen to have the caller's number and its corresponding name in your own Google Contacts, then GV will display that name to you.  If the caller is a business that Google knows about (via Adwords, or Google Maps or another means), then it will display the business' name.  None of this is coming from the LIDB.

Bottom line:  no, you cannot change what your called parties see when you call them, however, you can change what YOU see when they call you.

[drgeoff]

@Babz

There is a distinction between Caller ID (a number) and Caller Name (alphanumeric).  There is also a difference between how POTS/cellular and VoIP handle them.

The POTS trunk network carries Caller ID but not CallerName.  As you surmise it is the Callee's Service Provider who may use the Caller ID to query a database to provide a Caller Name which is sent to the callee along with CallerID.  As such the caller has no direct control over what name if any is presented to the callee.

OTOH VoIP has has the capability of carrying a name from the caller's terminal (analogue phone + ATA or IP phone).  If the call is VoIP end to end that name can be received by the callee.  But if the call uses the POTS trunk network at any point then that original name information is discarded and any Caller Name received by the callee will be a lookup on the number (as above).

[Frankfone]

Regrettable, it is the XXI century and still telephone companies / providers do not send or provide the caller ID name and number as soon as a person register his/her name. Don't you all think this should change for the good of the consumers?
I use Internetcalls (www.internetcalls.com) app in my cell for international calling and they allow you to change your verified caller ID number (no name); but you can do it as you please. So, if you want someone to think you are at home, all you do is change the ID before the call and bingo... it changes as you need it.