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Announcement: Change to outbound caller ID on Google Chat/XMPP calls

Started by SteveInWA, November 16, 2015, 02:42:20 PM

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SteveInWA

Just a heads-up:

As you may know, inbound Google Voice telephone numbers are only issued on exchanges in the 48 contiguous US states.  However, Google accounts that did not have a dedicated GV DID (inbound telephone number) could make outbound calls from any supported country via Google Chat/Talk/XMPP, which would display a generic Google-owned USA caller ID of 760-705-8888.  This phone number had no ability to receive calls; it was just a "filler".

When Google Hangouts and its new calling system was rolled out, callers could similarly make calls from any supported country.  For accounts without a dedicated GV DID number, no caller ID is sent; the caller ID will be "Anonymous" or "Unknown".  This harmonizes behavior across the many non-US countries where outbound Hangouts calling is available.

Google has now removed the 760-705-8888 caller ID from the legacy XMPP calling system, to align the behavior with calls made via Hangouts.  This means, anyone using an OBi device to make outbound calls via Google Chat/XMPP, who doesn't have their own US Google Voice number (either issued by Google, or ported in), will no longer be sending caller ID.  If you are in this group of users, then you should advise your contacts that they'll see anonymous calls, and not to ignore them as spam/telemarketing, etc.

The calling behavior for accounts that do have a dedicated/assigned GV phone number will not change; it will still send the GV number's caller ID with the call.

Anticipating the inevitable question, no, there is no way to alter this behavior via any setting on the OBi device.