Today I has a potential client ask me to for a system that would control his outbound Caller ID. My sales guy was proposing NEC Aspire, which supports custom CLI on PRI calls per station or trunk. So the sales guy says 'Sure, it does that' (like he was really going to say anything else).

When the customer and I get down to details, it gets more complicated. They have about 80 users in 4 different companies on this switch. They have one PRI with 3 DID ranges of 100 numbers each. He wants to be able to assign a company name to the outgoing caller ID as well as a number. Evidentally, he has a high turn over rate, as well as employes getting transferred from one company indentity to another with little warning. Their customer must not know that they companies are affiliated for some reason that I did not catch.

Naturally, as a tech guy, I told him that it don't do that. (Please imagine horrified sales guy at this point). I explain that I can only control the outbound number, and the telco controls the name. This is not good enough for the customer. He insists that he has to have this ability. I told him his best bet was to have the telco build a table of numbers associated with company names in the CO switch. He doesn't like this either. He then pushes to get us to commit to managing this database of names and numbers on his behalf with his telco (SBC in this case). I run screaming from the building.

Thus backed into the corner, I told him that no PBX that I was aware of had the ability to push outbound CID name to the telco, only number. I've done some light research into ISDN signaling and cannot tell one way or the other. Did I lie to this guy? Do any of you know of a PBX or key system or hybrid IP thingy that can do this?

Take your sales guy out back and shoot him. If he is a lawyer.. they are in season. Ask him if he goes to his neighbors house and makes a call does it show his name? You can manipulate the number ONLY.

Last system I knew of that could do what that client asked for was called the Hocus Pocus . I think they went under due to lack of referals . You might be able to jury rig some sort of E911 software to display different names with numbers

All I can really suggest, and it won't be cheap (equipment and circuit-wise), is to get multiple partial PRIs, where each circuit is assigned a different name. I think that's the best you can do.

as far as I know you can only do name. You may be able to have multiple billing numbers set up with the carries and have different names for them, buT it will probally start to get quit pricey for the csr.

I wonder if Barbara over in Telephone Service (https://www.sundance-communications.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/ubb/forum/f/33.html) would be able to give you some ideas. Maybe she's seen something that's worked for a case like this. Personally, I've seen this before, and we always end up telling the customer that the telco won't let you assign names, enhanced alternate routing, etc. based on DID; it's always based on circuit. Anyway, try posting a link to this topic over in her forum and see if she can help. It's worth a try.

Thanks to all for your input.

I'd love to shoot him, but I appear to be a poor sales person so he knows he's safe.

I know how to solve it, easy as pie, guaranteed.

What is his budget for equipment?

What is his budget for monthly recurring charges?

What is the calling pattern, mostly inbound, even, mostly outbound?

Approximate number of total minutes per month?

Which manufacturers equipment are you comfortable installing?

Approximate number of inbound callers at busiest time?

You might want to check with Tone Commander (800-524-0024). They make an E911 unit that installs in-line between the PBX and the circuit. It's designed to insert the appropriate information for off-premise users so the calls go to the correct 911 dispatcher. I don't see how they can do this, but I think it works. Give them a call and see what they can do. Oh, and by the way, the pricing isn't bad at all for it.

"as far as I know you can only do NAME. You may be able to have multiple billing numbers set up with the carrier and have different names for them, buT it will probally start to get quit pricey for the csr. "


that should read number....not name... sorry

Man that is going to be a tough one. As far as I know you can only have one BTN per PRI circuit max. One possibility, long shot, do you think that the TELCO could control the names if you went to account codes from the carrier? This way anyone that called from any phone on the network could enter their pin, or you insert the pin, and the carrier would be able to assign the call to the correct billing. Just a wild thought.

not sure if the account codes would work, a lot of times the long distance provider actually assignes the account codes, the local end just passes the call along

I like the idea of the Tone Commander for systems that cannot manipulate the outbound number, but according to their docs I cannot find any way to manipulate the name.

I think that the PRI-PRI device would be great for a large manufacturing facility where there could be liability issues with emergency calls. A 911 call from any station could send a text message to any cell phone and automatically record the 911 call. Somebody would pay for that. Have you ever tried one, Ed?

No, I sure haven't sold any, but Tone Commander is chomping at the bit for me to start buying them. We have plenty of applications for them, but the customers don't want to spend the money. I am not sure if that is required here yet, but I would imagine with so much networking and VoIP going on these days, it's gotta be just a matter of time before they become required everywhere.

name gets a little trickey the local carriers normally do an SS7 dip for name information based on the Ani they receive

It's kinda strange. I was setting up a PRI with a company a while back, and after they ported over the customer's numbers, I was messing around with CNID. I found that the name coming up actually matched the BTN info for that number. It freaked people out at my office when I put in their phone number, and when I called them, not only did their number show up on caller ID, but their name did as well. I'm not sure how it happened, but once everything updated that evening, it no longer worked like that. That just goes to show that it's possible. There's probably just something or someone that says it can't be done. I can site numerous cases where name adjustment and flexibility would be beneficial and helpful for the customer.

I have seen that happen before too. I always thought the name/number information was part of the switch information, but aparently it is kept in a separate reference database. Kinda scary when you think about it. The same thing happened to us on a fairly large government contractor's system. Their outgoing calls showed "King Street Pub". I don't think that looked too good! "Honey, I swear I am at the office".

It took months to get their CLEC to get it corrected.

Yeah, that reminds me of another case where a church's name was showing up as Dr. somebody. That one took a couple tries to get the provider to correct. I guess it's hard to fix something when "we can't see anything wrong, so the problem must be on your side". If I had the ability to have it on my side, believe me I would be using it!

Yep, "mus be sumpin' in yo PBX", the famous line heard around the world by yet another fine Verizon repair service representative. Yeah, OK.

Heh, hey why don't you try and "spoof" the outbound ANI of a local POTS line at each location to see what happens?

another problem is that local carriers are using different CNAM databases (targus and verisign -illuminet come to mind), which means that once a line ports If it is not removed from that carriers database calls that are native to that switch will often generate what ever cnam info is built-in the old system, not the info from the current carrier. This also is the case when a line ports out and the original carrier does not remove the number from their switch, all calls originating from the ported numbers native office will fail, because it never gives that call a chance to dip for the LRN and properly route....but that is a bit off topic, I will save that for when we have the "LNP" discussion So when the repair ummmm tech says all is ok it only means they checked their portion of the network. and did not bother going any further

I had a solution, but I didn't get any information, oh well.

What was your solution Bunnie?I had another tech ask me about the same thing the other day?

Please don't shoot the salesman!!
He cannot know everything about this sort of rare feature, even most techies don't really have a solid answer to this one either.
Just let him sell the lastest technology and the techs can work it out. After all, I thought techs liked a challenge.

It IS possible to control the outgoing CLID name from a KSU/PBX. I've done it on both Norstar and M1 equipment. I'm not positive, but you may need to be on NI2 protocol to do it. Norstars don't do it very well (a limited number of characters) but the Option switches do it quite well. The CPND name that you put in load 95 is sent out over the PRI along with the station's DID number.

NAME? Are you sure about that, Toner? Sure, the number can be manipulated, but I have never seen the ability to manipulate the name. I almost question the legality of such a possibility. That could get someone into a lot of trouble. We use NI2 all the time and no carrier has ever told us that they could allow us to pass the name; just the number.

There are some E911 software applications that can be installed to interface with a pri/isdn trunking. I am pretty sure they could be jury rigged to provide a more enhanced CLID. Could turn out to be a very costly solution though .

I'm 100% sure Ed. Maybe things are different up here in the great white north...

I was just programming a Norstar today, with PRI. There is a field to insert Business Name, and I know it does send something back to the C.O. when this field is used. A couple years ago I went out to a new site to program and turn up a PRI on a system that had the basics programmed by another tech. The other tech had put something in this field. The carrier and I went round and round trying to figure out why the calls were failing, and why we couldn't get the voice traffic to work properly on the circuit. After a few trips out there, and with them doing more extensive monitoring than they normally do, they found they were receiving some extra setup data down the D channel. It went away and everything worked fine once I cleared out this field. The strange thing is that it was on a NI2 out of a 5ESS switch. I made a note not to use the Business Name field on NI2. I think it actually had more to do with the 5ESS switch, but I don't know for sure. I'd sure like to find out, though. Maybe it's a US FCC thing.

As far as it being illegal or whatever, I don't see how defining the name is ANY different than defining the number. You can always specify to the carrier to send no name. In that case, if you are defining the number, you could cause just as much confusion as if you could specify the name.

One thing about defining the name on the Norstar, though. It looks like it only allows one name to be defined, so it's not much different than having the carrier define it. It's not like you can define a name on a per-extension basis.

I think Comdial had plans to allow name definition, as their programming offers the option. It doesn't work, though. That makes me wonder if maybe it IS a FCC thing, where it would be different in Canada. Maybe someone smarter than me will know.

I know, I know, this is an old post. I'm just trying to get caught up here.

Toner is not making it up. You can absolutely send NAME and Number from a Norstar or BCM, if the circuit is a PRI.
That being said, it is up to the carrier to pass the name along. Some do. Some don't.

You can actually send a unique name for every set. As 5years suggested, there is a Business Name field. That is used along with the set name to provide the complete name that is sent.
For example: If my Business Name is "BCMguy " and I call out from a set with a name of "Marty B" the name sent will be "BCMguy Marty B".

Thanks in advance for not flaming me over the old post. (Its only old to those that have seen it before. )

YEP

I got called on the carpet the other day for entering someone's name in Pig Latin .It was only spelled that way for less than 15 minutes .I had to wait a bit to reload the PRI software and they must of made a few calls and someone remarked about it ! :toast:

Yeah, it happens to me now and then. If I call out of the office on a phone that someone else has been "working on", you never know what might be sent out. I have had people ask a few times..."WHERE ARE YOU AT?". Sometimes they just don't believe I'm at the office.

There is a Bar a few blocks away from our building called "At The Office" . Which I am sure got it's name from the "Where Are You" questions .

:thumb:

Name control from PBX does work in Canada, doesn't work in the US. Only way I've seen it done in the US is if you've got a 'friendly' CLEC or LEC willing to set up individual names in the CNAM/LIDB databases. It's been said here already, but in the US, name is retrieved by the far end using a telco-to-telco ss7 dip. The only other exception I've seen is in the case of avaya-to-avaya calls that are SS7/ISDN end-to-end (even public network) and then the PBX name often displays.

I can confirm this. I have customers in Canada, who can include the entire name and number in the origination_phone_number and origination_sub_phone_number fields of the ISDN call setup message. This is with predictive dialer software and Dialogic cards, not a PBX though.

Other customers in the US do arrange with their carriers to set up blocks of numbers and names, and constantly change them as their needs change. Probably a managment nightmare though. One customer told us about a carrier providing this kind of control through a website. Don't recall exactly which one though.

I'm in the U.S. There are carriers in the U.S. that will pass number AND name, as sent from the PBX on a PRI. We do it on a regular basis. But, like I said, not all carriers will pass the name (to the point that some will even reject the call if name is included). We have lots of customers in Omaha, NE that it works for. I tried to get SBC to pass it in Kansas City...It didn't happen.

But, I guarantee, it absolutely works in parts of the U.S. ....as sent from the PBX.

Marty:

How can that be? Isn't this something controlled by the FCC/SCC regulations in the U.S? I am just asking at this point because this sounds dangerous in the grand scheme of things. I mean, if a customer could input their name and number as something favorable, like the local grocery store, then a telemarketer trying to sell a time share offer would surely get through to a perspective customer. That doesn't sound right.

Not to mention the "Honey, I am working late at the lawyer's office" stuff via a 1-900 number. If a switch can manipulate outward calling over a PRI by name, it could be a concern and a liability issue for the LEC.

Are you POSITIVE that name can be modified? I find that hard to believe. Number, sure, but name?

You're missing the easiest way in the world and it is legal and cheap and and can be manuvered on premisis and used by most any phone system anywhere and why no one has thought of it yet is a great mystery.

Its something I sell even though someone else provides it and collects the money for it. Come on now, put on your thinking caps, it is so obvious that I am sitting here wiggling my Bunnie tail and as a hint, some people think it is not ready and they should not sell it. But, lots of people sell it.

The smaller people who provide it are probably more ameniable to help you with it than the bigger ones, but who knows, you could probably take care of it yourself.

Keep the dialogue going until you are exhausted.

Only thing I can think of, would be a Vonage account in whichever name you want. Then output the number on the PRI....

Probably not the answer, but workable.

Ed,

Yes. I am positive. I agree that it could be dangerous, but that doesn't change the fact that it can be done. In our office, the bulk of the phones send the appropriate company name. However, phones in the lab are fair game for the techs. They might send out the company name, or they might send "Union Pacific" or "City Morgue" etc.

If it were abused, it could certainly be a liability to someone. But, I don't think it would be the LEC, if the CPE is providing the name. The owner of the switch will have a vested interest in seeing that the setup is appropriate.

I can't speak for any other manufacturer. But, with a Nortel system and a PRI from the right carrier, this is easily manipulated.

All of this push-back has me second guessing a little (even though I KNOW its been done). I'll have to set it up and make some test calls when I have a chance. The thing that I want to test is whether the NAME survives a handoff from one carrier to another. Can I call you for the test ED?

Marty, sure you can use me for the test. I will PM you my phone number.

Thanks Ed!

I know I have seen it work locally (within the same CO). This will be a better test (half way across the country).

I'm interested to hear out it turns out... the way it works on avaya-to-avaya is that it's an extra (non-essential) information element in the setup, and so long as it doesn't get stripped, the far-end Avaya system displays it correctly. But when the same originating 'avaya' system calls a non-avaya, the name dip provdies what the LEC has on file. (As an example, the State Farm claims center rep's name shows up on my desk phone, but that same person calling from the same phone to my 'home' I only get 'state farm' as the name.... it's even more interesting because my PRI is not NI2, so I don't get 'public' name, except from other Avaya equipment...)