With CC having problems, any other free USA DID's with caller name?

[Hortoristic]

With CC having problems, any other free USA DID's with caller name free service I can use?

I got one of them free NY Call Centric numbers, forward all GV numbers to this, and have the DID ring my house - this way I get free caller name.  But with Call Centric still being so unstable, anyone know of any other DID providers I might use instead for my workaround for caller name?

I had been using Simon Gateway and it seemed to be working well enough - maybe I should just revert back to that.

[BearJerCares]

Are you still having issues with Callcentric incoming caller ID or have your moved on?   I also am having issues wit their caller ID only showing the incoming number, not the name, about half the time.  I filed a ticket and was basically told they had no guarantees of support for the "free" telephone numbers - although I do pay $1.50 for the caller ID service and 911 service.  Like you, I have Google Voice with my Obi device and only got the Callcentric phone number for caller ID.

If it is this unstable to provide adequate caller ID, with both name and number, I might want to pursue something else also.  Can anyone shed light on this issue?

[Hortoristic]

It has been working well lately for me.

[CoalMinerRetired]

It's been working reliable for me also, since about February.

[xzaphod]

I want to solve the problem of Google Voice not providing CNAM database lookups. Some documentation on voip.ms says you can get CID & CNAM and there's documentation that you can set your CNAM for a (one-time) fee of US $10 + some paperwork. It works for only some U.S. numbers though.

See http://wiki.voip.ms/article/Caller_ID for more information.

Another possibility I'm considering is a "free license" SIP server (on one of my spare computers) like SER (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIP_Express_Router). Set it up to forward to Callcentric or pick-your-favorite and, during incoming call setup, write a snip of code to go out to a big CNAM database with the CID and look up the CNAM. There's likely a small charge for each U.S. DID query but that's life. For outbound calls, you'll likely have to fill in the paperwork that voip.ms suggests, pay your fee, and get your phone number into the CNAM database.

Point your OBI at that SIP server but let the real work be done by whatever SIP server you forward to. Perhaps you could set up your OBI to fall back to your Callcentric SIP if your SIP server is unavailable?

[CoalMinerRetired]

^ I think you're over engineering this.

The original post was from eight months ago when CallCentric was suffering from Hurricane Sandy flooding problems, then they were targeted for an internet attack. They have since recovered, and recently announced a second data canter.

Configuring GV to use a CC number as a forwarding phone easily solves the issue of adding CNAM, no custom scripts nor home based 24x7 servers needed.

I'd also question why you want to proactively have your name listed in a CNAM database. Keeping it unlisted and unpublished was and still is an add-on service for which you pay an additional up-charge each month when you have a line from the landline telco providers.  See this: http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=5320.msg34456#msg34456.

[xzaphod]

Hehe: guilty as charged. I may be over-engineering a solution.

I didn't know that CC was then suffering from the hurricane and hacker damage. Those facts tend to change the equation. I'd like to avoid paying a monthly or annual fee for VOIP; I killed my landline to lower my monthly communication costs. Running my own SIP server should alloe minimizing costs to a buck a month or so for CNAM + some 80 cents to a dollar a month for E911. I get to play with the technology too.

A not-insignificant component is the enjoyment I receive exploring various technologies. I am an engineer at heart.

I like the OBI202 (just bought a second one to set up OBIPLUS) but I think the OBI's lack maturity. It should be straight forward for an OBI box to send a CNAM request to pick-a-service a la OBI's support for E911. If OBIHAI would install and expose (to users) Perl, or another scripting language, with a good assortment of packages, users could write scripts to make their OBI do tricks far beyond "sit" and "stay".

[xzaphod]

Forgot to answer the last question: why would I want my name in the CNAM database?

Some of the people I call will not answer their phone if they don't see a name they recognize. Older folks tend to get a lot of phone calls from scammers trying to get money. The tendency among the scammers is to falsify or omit their CNAM data in the called Caller ID data. One couple I know (not my parents) receive 6-8 phone calls a day from such ne'er-do-wells. The couple quickly learned to never answer their phone without a recognized name. They're old enough to not readily remember phone numbers. With Google Voice not offering an option to look up CNAM data (I'd pay them a small fee for that), the best I can do is to leave a message and wait for the return call.

Otherwise I'm happy to suppress my CID going out using * codes.

[Rick]

Most phones allow the ability to store names and numbers in a directory, which then provides callerid when a listed person calls.

[CoalMinerRetired]

This -- www.donotcall.gov -- was tailor made for older folks you are describing.