dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
17748

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB to mezzy316

Premium Member

to mezzy316

Re: [Other] Ooma Outbound Caller ID Not Working

said by mezzy316:

I can't believe that there is nothing I can do to fix this.
the chief marketing officer of ooma has a twitter account. recently he posted "I love to hear directly from Ooma users." send him a tweet with your ticket number (no personal identifying info as tweets are open for public viewing) and ask him to intervene on your behalf. »twitter.com/richbuchanan
dbwilson
Premium Member
join:2000-06-19
Fayetteville, GA

dbwilson to PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer704
said by PX Eliezer704:

This demonstrates that customers to whom outbound caller name is important, should look elsewhere than Ooma.

Four months........

Res ipsa loquitur.
Mezzy316's difficulty is not the only case like this, and delays are pretty common. This case and a few others go well beyond what one could reasonably call just a delay. My CNAM info was handled promptly but did require intervention by Ooma to get right - at first my CNAM for my home number ported from Comcast was reversed with my second number I set up with Ooma, but they did fix it. In a case like mezzy316's, Ooma should provide a timetable for resolution and feedback on progress or lack thereof.

canublvit
@rr.com

canublvit to mezzy316

Anon

to mezzy316
I don't know what "Ooma" is, but I write because this came up when I googled "AT&T Caller ID not working".

After several previous calls to AT&T Wireless, I have spent an hour this morning speaking with AT&T reps trying to get my caller ID info corrected on outgoing calls. I have been reporting this problem to them for weeks. My outgoing calls show up as a previous account holder's name, or on AT&T cell phones, show only my number---no name.

At&T insists the problem is not theirs, and suggests that the people I call who get the wrong number call their carriers to see if THEY can correct the problem. Amazing and infuriating. Suggestions?!

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

said by canublvit :

Suggestions?!
switch to Sprint.
mezzy316
join:2009-10-19
Oshkosh, WI

mezzy316

Member

The more I research this, the more it appears that this is not Ooma's fault. From everything I can find, it is the responsibility of the carrier on the terminating end of the call to look up the Caller ID info and transmit it. When I ported my number from AT&T, they wiped my name from their cnam database, which is why I show up as "Null, Null". (They do this just to be a-holes in my opinion). Since I am no longer their customer, they can't just use their own cnam database to transmit the name. In order to transmit my name properly, they would have to pay a fee to look up the info from another source (targus, etc.) and they don't want to pay the money to do that.

I found an interesting article from the Boston Globe that summarizes why many people have this problem, either with the name showing as "Null, Null" like mine does or as the previous person that had that name. ('http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-07-13/business/0607130036_1_caller-id-per-call-basis-telecommunications-companies')

In the meantime I guess I'm just stuck. My next step is to file a complaint with the FCC. I'm not expecting anything to come of it, but we'll see.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

That's the picture.

(In the USA, anyway. Not as bad in Canada).

AT&T can't be blamed too much for wiping their cnam info, though. Once a number is ported out, they don't know who the owner is anymore.

Here in NJ, a large hospital ported their phone number from Verizon to PAETEC. The hospital had the phone # for decades.

After the number was ported, when calls were made from the hospital's phone system, to Verizon subscribers, the calls showed up as PRIVATE NAME. (Which may or may not be better than NULL!)

It took about 2 months for Verizon to start showing the hospital's name again.

---------------------------------------

Two funny things here:

1) The hospital was a very big customer, yet a Verizon employee I know said that Verizon really didn't care about losing them. Verizon really doesn't give a damn about landlines anymore.

2) There's a huge Verizon facility right next to the hospital. Ironic.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB to mezzy316

Premium Member

to mezzy316
mezzy316, you are misinterpreting the article. the phone companies of the people you call are the ones that have to pay the lookup fee. The old carrier didn't have to pay a lookup fee when you called someone (unless you called someone using that same carrier), and neither does your new carrier. Your old carrier erased you because you're not their customer anymore and they don't know the disposition of your number. It is the new carrier's responsibility to get your name in the database -- for ooma, it's a published standard feature, as you have seen on their website. If everyone you call sees "null, null" then that is how your old carrier left it ... it is your new carrier's responsibility to change it.

FCC will do nothing for you (their role is more global in scope, regulating the industry, not doing customer service escalations). Did you send a message to Rich Buchanan at his twitter account as I had suggested?
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

RockyBB, you are 100 percent right, as pretty much always.

But if Ooma pushes the CNAM update to a particular 3rd party database, and if an ILEC such as AT&T refuses to buy info from that database, then there really isn't anything else that Ooma (or the customer) can do, is there?

Companies such as AT&T provide incoming CNAM as a service to their own customers. They don't seem to have an obligation to anyone else.
mezzy316
join:2009-10-19
Oshkosh, WI

mezzy316 to RockyBB

Member

to RockyBB
No, I understand the article perfectly. According to Ooma, they have updated my cnam info in Targus. When I make a call to someone, the carrier of the person I am calling is the one that needs to look up that number and display the name. My old carrier was AT&T. 90% of the people I am calling also have AT&T. That tells me that AT&T is not looking up the new cnam info because they don't want to pay the fee to do it. When I was their customer, they used their own cnam database so it was free to them (makes sense). Now that I have Ooma, they would have to pay to get the cnam info and they are not doing it.

That said, I have called people that do not have AT&T and my Caller ID name shows "Null, Null" for them as well.
mezzy316

mezzy316

Member

And yes, I did send a message to Rich Buchanan but have not heard anything back.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB to mezzy316

Premium Member

to mezzy316
said by mezzy316:

No, I understand the article perfectly. According to Ooma, they have updated my cnam info in Targus. ...
That said, I have called people that do not have AT&T and my Caller ID name shows "Null, Null" for them as well.
perhaps ooma can suggest to you one human being on the planet that can see your caller ID as something other than "Null, Null." Perhaps they can create a list of people for you to call that will see your name...you can make new friends.

Maybe I should start a cnam database right here, and you can call my friends.

If they are updating a database that is not used in the industry then what the hell good does it do? And why do they send your number to that crappy database, and all their other customers' numbers to some other database that has no issue?

Were it me, I would send messages to Rich Buchanan daily until you get a response. After a week, twice daily. After two weeks, 3 times a day.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to RockyBB

Premium Member

to RockyBB

Re: AT&T: Always Taking & Taking

The irony is that AT&T charges its customers a lot of money for incoming caller ID and CNAM service, yet does not want to pay for accurate data.

By contrast, VoSP such as CallCentric (and some others) offer the incoming CID/CNAM for no extra charge, yet they DO try their best to have accurate data!
PX Eliezer704

PX Eliezer704 to RockyBB

Premium Member

to RockyBB

Re: [Other] Ooma Outbound Caller ID Not Working

"TARGUSinfo accesses over 420,000,000 caller names that are sourced by telecommunications companies. Hybrid files such as those offered by TNS/VeriSign access only 144,000,000 listings and the listings can be out-of-date due to timing and sourcing issues."

"TARGUSinfo is the largest private CNAM provider delivering over 121,000,000 CNAMs every day – that is 44,165,000,000 queries per year."

»www.targusinfo.com/solut ··· er_name/

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB to PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer704

Re: AT&T: Always Taking & Taking

said by PX Eliezer704:

yet does not want to pay for accurate data.
source, please.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

1) I have no reason to doubt that his listing is updated in Targusinfo. If AT&T used Targusinfo then none of us would be here because the problem would be fixed.

2) »articles.baltimoresun.co ··· ompanies certainly documents this for Verizon. AT&T is an even more of a tightwad company than Verizon and I'm not gonna source that except to say that I have clients who work for both and I've heard stories....

3) Clearly AT&T wants to use its own in-house service which they in turn market to others.
»www.business.att.com/who ··· olesale/

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

said by PX Eliezer704:

1)

2)

3)
weak

dcurrey
Premium Member
join:2004-06-29
Mason, OH

1 edit

dcurrey to PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer704
This just isn't an AT&T issue the OP said a few post above. "I have called people that do not have AT&T and my Caller ID name shows "Null, Null" for them as well."

This leads me to believe Ooma is somehow at fault. No one is getting any cname info.

Clearly he is not getting the service that he paid for and I see no real way to get Oomas attention here. If he cancels and disputes the charge on credit card the company that sold him the unit gets burned not Ooma.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

said by dcurrey:

This just isn't an AT&T issue
I think I'm changing my mind on this. The introduction to the discussion of Targus might be the missing piece of the puzzel.

Maybe, maybe, at account turnoff AT&T set his caller ID name to "null, null" instead of completely expunging it. This means that any database query gets the AT&T response of "null, null" instead of no response. If there is a response, then that's the name that goes out. This seems to be what is happening in the network ... "null, null" to everyone. If there was no response (or the equivalent of "not in the database") then the terminating carrier would check the next database in their sequence, which would include Targus at some point (typically LECs will check multiple databases in sequence until they get a hit).

So I'm thinking it's worth a call to AT&T to see if they can expunge the record for mezzy316's phone number altogether. Sitting right here right now, I don't know who makes the call to what part of AT&T. I'm thinking that mezzy316 call into customer service, ask for a supervisor, and explain that his account was not fully canceled by virtue of his caller ID name changed to "null, null" as opposed to not in the database altogether.

Maybe that fixes it....
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: AT&T

said by RockyBB:

Maybe, maybe, at account turnoff AT&T set his caller ID name to "null, null" instead of completely expunging it. This means that any database query gets the AT&T response of "null, null" instead of no response. If there is a response, then that's the name that goes out.
This makes sense, and also would explain why his NUMBER does not show up either!

On my Verizon landline, when I receive calls coming from cellphones or from VoIP companies, the *name* may just show up as "Cellphone" or "Private" or "Toledo" or "Unknown", but the *number* always shows up!
mezzy316
join:2009-10-19
Oshkosh, WI

mezzy316

Member

The number does show up. Just the name is wrong.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

So the name field says Null, Null ?

Sorry, my mistake, I thought one of them was the Number field.

-----------------------------------------------

Well, if it's any consolation, here's an AT&T manager who seems to be named Null Null:

»www.linkedin.com/pub/nul ··· 3/843/b7

-----------------------------------------------

But as RockyBB said, maybe after the holidays you can try to get to someone at AT&T to see if the problem is that they only partially expunged your record. Good luck.

dcurrey
Premium Member
join:2004-06-29
Mason, OH

dcurrey

Premium Member

Don;'t feel bad that was my understanding also. Couldn't for the life of me figure out why at least the number wasn't showing up.
mezzy316
join:2009-10-19
Oshkosh, WI

mezzy316

Member

Re: [Other] Ooma Outbound Caller ID Not Working

Good Lord, it's a miracle!

That's right, I am no longer "Null, Null". The damn thing is actually showing my name (first initial, last name).

Interestingly enough, about two weeks ago, I went on the FCCs web site and filed a complaint against AT&T. I find it hard to believe that it's a coincidence that I went 6 months as "Null, Null", and two weeks after I file my complaint it's suddenly working. Coincidence or not, at least it's finally resolved.

Thanks to everyone that's helped with suggestions. I appreciate it.

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

1 edit

jseymour to mezzy316

Member

to mezzy316
Never mind

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB to mezzy316

Premium Member

to mezzy316
congrats! sure would be nice to know what happened...

Trev
AcroVoice & DryVoIP Official Rep
Premium Member
join:2009-06-29
Victoria, BC

Trev to mezzy316

Premium Member

to mezzy316
You seem to be lucky.

There are 13 unique numbers including you that have been checking their Caller ID Name through my site since October. I just randomly checked a few of them and they still show as NULL, NULL. Looks like your complaint might have been what finally did it.
beaver
join:2006-03-12
Beaverton,OR

beaver

Member

Sorry. I have an ooma CID issue. My ooma outbound CID was "OOMA" + my phone number. but now it is displayed as my city name and phone#. I didn't do any change. I am using phone number given by ooma. I didn't port my phone#.
Any ooma user here? I am with ooma basic account, not Premier. if you are using phone number by ooma, what CID display?