[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.
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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.
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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.
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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.