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Porting Verizon FiOS To Obihai

Started by intermediatic, September 12, 2014, 03:21:07 PM

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intermediatic

The amount of spam I am getting on my FiOS line is outrageous. I get none on my Google Voice line. Perhaps this is because GV has decent spamscam filtering? Either way, I can't handle it anymore, my nerves are shot due to the spamscam.

As a last ditch effort before getting rid of our "land line,"  I would like to try porting it to my Obihai. It's already feeding the obihai as a land line in, but I'd like to configure it as a GV line. How do I go about doing that port? Has anyone succeeded? Do I need a prepaid card? Whose can I use? Any other solutions?

I nearly had a stroke today when spamscammer said he was from the IRS.

SteveInWA

Hi:

You don't "port a number to Obihai".  You port a number to a VoIP telephone carrier, and then you configure your OBi hardware device to work with your new carrier.  Examples are listed on Obihai's main page, and their service provider list, when you go through the setup procedure (for example, Callcentric, voip.ms, etc.).  Note:  you can't port a land line (FiOS for example) directly into Google Voice; you'd need to first port it into a prepaid mobile carrier, such as GoPhone, and then wait a week or so for the carrier databases to be updated.  This would be at your own risk, as there is no guarantee that any particular number can be ported into GV.

On the other hand, unrelated to Obihai, have you looked into nomorobo.com?  It's a free service, and it was the winner of the FCC's contest to develop robo-call blocking solutions.  You would need to subscribe to simultaneous ringing service from Verizon.  When someone calls your phone number, it also rings a number at nomorobo.  They have a database of known spammers, and when a robo-caller ID is calling, they'll answer and dump the call.

This also works with Callcentric, although it's not documented on nomorobo's website.  You just have to lie to the nomorobo setup routine, and tell it you are using a supported carrier (Vonage).

Since I started using nomorobo, the only junk calls I get are from charities or political callers, which, by law, aren't considered covered under the "do not call list".

Kman609

#2
Like Steve said: Nomorobo will definitely cull the spam calls--not to zero, but it will certainly slow them down.

If you want to stay with Verizon, you need their Digital Voice service in order to use Nomorobo, as "Simultaneous Ring" is required by Nomorobo, and it's only offered with Verizon's Digital Voice service.

If you want to stop the calls altogether (and keep your old number) I have found the only way is to use a "white list" where only approved callers can ring your phone.  All others are routed to voice mail or hung up on.  You can do a white list on your Verizon line using hardware like Digitone's Call Blocker Plus (though I've had issues with their longevity), or you can dump Verizon and go with a new provider like Callcentric, who allows "Call Treatments", i.e., filters for incoming calls.  Using call treatments, you can have whitelisted people ring through to your phones directly and have all others either go to voice mail, get hung up on, or be challenged to enter a number in order to complete the call.

Good luck

Fellow Verizon sufferer (though not for long).

Edit:  I have to ask:  Do your have Caller ID on your phone and is this your home phone?  If so, then why are you answering numbers that you do not recognize?  If you don't recognize the number, just let it go to voicemail.  The scammers almost never leave a message.

SteveInWA

Note that you can also use nomorobo with SIP ITSPs that support simulring, like Callcentric.  When setting up your nomorobo account, just tell it that you are using Vonage (which is one of their known-to-work carriers).  It will then give you the toll-free nomorobo sink-hole number to use, which is all that matters.

chicobiker

For me Callcentric's call treatments are worth their weight in gold pressed latinum bars.  Just this evening, after the third call from a particular number in the last two days, I told my wife, "well, they just earned themselves a call treatment."  We will never hear from them again on that number.  So cool!

Kman609

#5
Quote from: chicobiker on September 22, 2014, 08:23:02 PM
For me Callcentric's call treatments are worth their weight in gold pressed latinum bars.  Just this evening, after the third call from a particular number in the last two days, I told my wife, "well, they just earned themselves a call treatment."  We will never hear from them again on that number.  So cool!

There is something satisfying about slamming the door on unwanted solicitors--especially since so many of them nowadays aren't telemarketers in the old fashioned sense, they're criminals looking to scam you.

Blocking a single number worked for me a year ago.  Now, the scammers have upped their game, spoofing new local calls every two days or so--to me at least.  I may be a special case, because I used to mess with them constantly, wasting as much of their time as I could before letting them know the joke was on them.  I think we're on every call list there is.

I do look forward to using the call treatments, though I'm not thrilled about getting billed for each scammer that gets blocked, as we're on the pay per minute plan.  It takes what, a fraction of a second to block a call, but they bill for a full minute.  Getting billed for a call (from a criminal no less) that never gets connected is gonna take some getting used to.  Sometimes we get 30 crap calls in a day.  We may have to give up the number we've had for 30 years to get off the lists and start from scratch.