Well, this may or may not be part of the problem...
There are some companies (usually cheap-@## companies) that buy "restricted" toll-free service. The idea is that if you only have customers in certain states, then you only accept calls if the caller ID (or, in some cases, the ANI, which can be different from the Caller ID) matches a number in "your area." If it comes from an area code that's not considered to be in your area, the carrier drops the call before it ever reaches the company. The idea is that by doing that, the company saves a few bucks a month on wrong numbers, sales calls, and other traffic they don't want to pay for.
This was a great idea back in the 1980's.
Today, of course, there are two issues. First, a customer may have a phone number that bears no relation to their actual geographic location. But second, if you are using anything other than a traditional landline phone company, there is a very good chance that your true Caller ID or ANI will not be sent. That's particularly true when you are not providing it to the carrier in the first place.
One way you can tell what number is being sent is to call MCI at 1-800-444-4444. In the first few seconds they will read back the number they think you are calling from. When I call from a Google Voice number in Michigan, using Google Voice, it accurately reads back my Google Voice number. But that may not be the case for calls from all areas of the country. If I am using
tf.callwithus.com it reads back 567-255-9999, a Mansfield Ohio number. So if some company accepted calls from Michigan area codes but not from Ohio area codes, the call would go through (for me) when using Google Voice, but not when using callwithus.
(Another test: Call TellMe at 1-800-555-8355, say "Weather", and after the short ad plays see if it offers to read the weather for your city, or some other city in another part of the country,
after it prompts for your city and state or zip code. If it actually says the city and state associated with your phone number, then it's probably getting an accurate number.)
To make things even more confusing, if you actually supply a number during call setup, some toll-free providers will use it while others (most of them) will not. I think the number of toll-free carriers that will pass caller ID is dwindling because of new anti-spoofing laws (apparently passing a totally bogus Caller ID is not considered spoofing, but they don't want people pretending to be calling from the White House or something). If using a Voice Gateway on an OBi device you can try putting your desired 10 digit Caller ID number in the AuthUserID field and see if it will pass through, but unless you are actually authenticating with a provider in some way I doubt they will pass it (tf.callwithus.com appears to be an exception in that, at least as I write this, they will pass a 10 digit caller ID placed in the AuthUserID field - if you try that make sure to use numbers only, with no punctuation or spaces).
So, to make a long story short, sometimes the trick is to use a toll-free provider that sends a number that the company you are trying to call will accept calls from. Of course you could call up the company and try reminding them that we are not in the 1980's anymore, and suggest it might be time to stop limiting incoming calls based on area code (assuming you know for a fact that they do that, and chances are they're not going to admit it). Or for home alarm service you could switch to a company that actually knows that some of their customers have broadband Internet and VoIP (I've heard some good reports about NextAlarm, but have never used them personally).
By the way, a simple explanation of the difference between Caller ID and ANI is that Caller ID is supposed to be the CALLING number, while ANI is the BILLING number. They are not always the same. For example, many companies send the Caller ID of the main switchboard, or some other number they want people to use when returning the call, but will send an ANI reflecting the actual extension the call came from, so when they get the phone bill they can break down the calls by individual extensions. For residential landline users, Caller ID and ANI are nearly always the same. BOTH are transmitted during the setup of a toll-free call, but as noted above there are many cases where one or both may not accurately reflect the actual caller.
