dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
1757

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

4 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

Inbound CNAM, A More Detailed Comparison

 
[WARNING - LONG PREAMBLE !]

(Note : As one depends upon the other, Outbound CNAM is also being discussed in this thread.)

I recently completed porting of a phone number to my Anveo account, and in the process of testing the success of the port-in, I made some discoveries.

= = = = = = =

First, the number came directly from my Canadian cell provider (Rogers), but was originally a Bell Canada landline (POTS) number, and this was the 3rd time that I had ported that number, for a variety of reasons unimportant to this thread.

I then moved an alternate originally Bell Canada landline (POTS) number to the Rogers cellphone on another SIM card, and began my tests.

MY other VoIP account is with CallCentric, using one of their own assigned numbers, and the related CLEC is Fibernetics of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

So I placed calls among my various numbers and observed the results for CNAM.

The Rogers prepaid cell account which I have does not display incoming CNAM (just number, and gets any names only from my phone's address book), so I did not expect to see CNAM on THAT part of my tests. - I got what I expected there.

= = = = = = =

However, what I found most interesting was what happened when I called each of my VoIP numbers from my Rogers cell (with the now alternate number, which had belonged to my late father, and which I had ported to another cell some time ago, and more recently to my Rogers cell, to retain it).

That number's CNAM info is not in either of my VoIP address books, nor those of my phones, but was, and still IS in the database (LIDB) kept by Bell Canada, our incumbent carrier, because neither of the 2 cell carriers to whom I had ported that number (or any other number, for that matter) had ever made changes to to the LIDB, nor had offered to do so.

Rogers had asked me what name I wanted to have sent, but that turned out to not be the same thing, as you will see next.

THE ACTUAL TESTS :

The CallCentric phone showed MY name when called from that cell number.

The Anveo phone showed my FATHER's name.

MY name is what I had asked Rogers CS to have the cell account send 'ON-THE-FLY' as CNAM when I call out from the current number (they let us do that), whereas my FATHER's name is what is still in the Bell LIDB, and is what also still shows up if I do a reverse search for that number on the www.canada411.ca website.

What this seems to illustrate about the functionality of these 2 VoIP carriers regarding inbound CNAM is :

CallCentric watches for and DOES use any valid CNAM which is sent 'on-the-fly', and only does a CNAM dip if necessary, whereas Anveo dumps it by default and always does a CNAM dip if programmed to dip at all.

Anveo also charges me to do the dip (but the inbound call itself is free on my rate plan), whereas CallCentric includes the dip, but charges more per minute for the call if on an open rate plan such as mine.

= = = = = = =

I have not yet tried disabling the inbound CNAM dipping on my Anveo number, to see whether or not any 'ON-THE-FLY' CNAM makes it through under THAT config.

Now would be a good time to TRY that, I reckon.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

said by Davesnothere:

Anveo also charges me to do the dip

Just disable CNAM lookup and you are not charged anything.

You should also populate your Anveo Contacts, thus getting your own personal CNAM database.



Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

1 edit

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by Arne Bolen:

Just disable CNAM lookup and you are not charged anything....

 
Good points - though I wasn't complaining.

My thought was to do it anyway (temporarily), and see whether any 'ON-THE-FLY' CNAM (such as in my test example) comes thru.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

IMO the CNAM system is useless. I can't see any practical use for displaying "WIRELESS NY" or similar on my phone.

With Anveo Contacts I get useful information on my phone's display, and it's even free of charge.
Stewart
join:2005-07-13

Stewart to Davesnothere

Member

to Davesnothere
Some tests made about a week ago showed that calls made on Voxbeam's Direct route to a Bell POTS line show the "display name" sent from the SIP device. This also worked when calling my Dell Voice number.

However, I tried calling my contact's Virgin Mobile phone, but her display showed no name at all. She said that her phone will only display a name, if it is in the phone's contact list. Is that normal for Canadian mobiles?

Voxbeam Direct rate to most of Canada is a very reasonable $0.0045/min., 6/6 billing. But look out -- some numbers in Yukon and NWT are $0.1158/min!

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

2 edits

Davesnothere

Premium Member

said by Stewart:

Some tests made about a week ago....

 
Hmmm,,, I've not heard much about, nor paid much attention to Voxbeam so far.

Do they support many Canadian rate centres for new numbers and/or porting ?

I tried playing with my PAP2T's Display Name field on occasion, and never was able to make it appear on any line's incoming CID/CNAM.

As for Canadian mobiles, here's MY take on them :

Virgin is part of Bell, and uses their network. - Before they went 3G/4G, all Bell-related (and Telus, for that matter) were unable to receive/display incoming CNAM at all (a possible limitation of the old CDMA network protocol, which also did not support SIM cards), no matter what phone make nor model, nor what bribes might get offered to a CS rep. - I think that this same functionality prevails, even on the newest Bell/Telus 4G network.

Rogers, OTOH, which includes Fido, has always supported inbound CNAM (because the GSM protocol which they use[d] apparently always did, as well as SIM cards), but not on all account types. - This is purely political, as Rogers wants to get folks onto contract accounts, where they BTW charge extra for incoming CID at all (which then includes the name), though throw in for free the 'crippled' version of it (number only) onto the prepaid accounts such as mine.

Our newer cell carriers, such as Wind, I dunno.
Stewart
join:2005-07-13

Stewart

Member

said by Davesnothere:

Hmmm,,, I've not heard much about, nor paid much attention to Voxbeam so far.

Do they support many Canadian rate centres for new numbers and/or porting ?

I presently use Voxbeam for termination only. If you want to try that out, they give a $1 free trial at signup, without having to supply any financial info.

For origination, they are unfortunately unsuitable for small users, unless you want new numbers, because they port non-US numbers by custom agreement only; I suspect that they won't talk to you unless at least 50 numbers are involved.

Voxbeam origination is the same stuff as Anveo Direct; they are both resellers of Voxbone, who presently has numbers in 172 Canadian rate centers. See »www.anveodirect.com/did/ ··· age/full . I believe that you'll get exactly the same VoIP service from either, and I would generally choose Anveo, as their prices are somewhat lower (for most usage patterns) and IMO support is better.

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

Trev to Stewart

Premium Member

to Stewart
said by Stewart:

However, I tried calling my contact's Virgin Mobile phone, but her display showed no name at all. She said that her phone will only display a name, if it is in the phone's contact list. Is that normal for Canadian mobiles?

Unfortunately this is typical. Only Rogers (and their other brand Fido) support names bidirectionally. All other carriers do not support names at all.

Davesnothere
Change is NOT Necessarily Progress
Premium Member
join:2009-06-15
Canada

Davesnothere to Arne Bolen

Premium Member

to Arne Bolen
said by Arne Bolen:

IMO the CNAM system is useless.

I can't see any practical use for displaying "WIRELESS NY" or similar on my phone....

 
Agreed - that's at least boring, if not annoying, on its own merit alone.

Interestingly enough, I think that I have been getting better results than that (on the average) from Anveo's CNAM dips.

There might be something unique to how/when Anveo accesses the Canadian carriers' LIDBs and what is in them, but as all of the inbound calls themselves are free on my $2 per month DID, I'm not unhappy to be paying explicitly for the CNAM dips.

Plus their Call Flows are quite powerful, and I'm only scratching the surface so far.
Davesnothere

Davesnothere to Trev

Premium Member

to Trev
said by Trev:

....Only Rogers (and their other brand Fido) support names bidirectionally.

All other carriers do not support names at all.

 
So you are saying that my above-mentioned earlier observations (2008-ish) about Bell/Telus etc still hold true, even with their new self-proclaimed 'best thing since sliced bread' super-speedy uber-advanced network ?

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

Trev

Premium Member

said by Davesnothere:

So you are saying that my above-mentioned earlier observations (2008-ish) about Bell/Telus etc still hold true, even with their new self-proclaimed 'best thing since sliced bread' super-speedy uber-advanced network ?

As a user of the aforementioned 'best network in Canada', yes, they still cannot (perhaps the correct term: will not) even give me names on my smartphone, nor do they transmit a name when I call others.

Although I don't like people having my cell number, so I often use DISA to make calls to clients anyway. Thus they see my office name and number.

XCOM
digitalnUll
Premium Member
join:2002-06-10
Spring, TX

XCOM to Davesnothere

Premium Member

to Davesnothere
I have had very good success rate with opencnam @ opencnam.org
They charge $0.0040 per query for their professional tier.

I give them an A+!