echozulu's profile

Contributor

 • 

1 Message

Saturday, August 31st, 2013 3:45 PM

caller ID?

Just got Uverse phone and caller ID not working properly. When I call others, it shows them my city and phone number-no name. When others call me it sometimes says unavailable and the phone number. Is there a lag time between installation and fully functional caller ID?

Accepted Solution

Official Solution

New Member

 • 

25.7K Messages

11 years ago

Sometimes it can take up to 2 weeks for the name to populate to the CNAM databases.  If after that it's still not working post back and one of the community managers can assist you to get it corrected.  You can try calling someone you know with an AT&T number and see if it works correctly.  AT&T should have you in theirs already.  If not it may not be provisioned correctly so that would require one of the community managers to assist.

Remember there are multiple databases throughout the multiple carriers.

Here is a short overview:

Outbound Caller-ID Name (CNAM) Display

If other callers are seeing your caller-ID name (CNAM) displaying "Unknown, Null Null, or someone else’s name”, please read the information below on possible causes and solutions.

Table of Contents

  1. How CNAM works
  2. Why your caller-ID name may not be displaying properly
  3. Provisioning outbound Caller-ID Name
  4. Customizing your Caller-ID Name

How CNAM works

When you place a call to someone, your caller-ID information will be transmitted with your call to the receiving party. If the person you are calling has caller-ID service, they will see your caller-ID name and number.

Generally, the caller-ID number is almost never wrong because the caller-ID number is almost always sent with the call. However, to display the CNAM to the receiving party, the receiving telephone carrier must first look up your CNAM in a database using your phone number.

Why your caller-ID name may not be displaying properly

For most phone carriers, there’s a cost associated with either querying a 3rd party CNAM database or keeping their own CNAM database up to date. Some telephone carriers have almost immediate access to the most up to date CNAM information, while others may not have access to this information for several months or longer.

Matters are further complicated with carriers having more than 20 different CNAM databases that do not all have the same data. Depending on the location and terminating carrier, certain people you call may correctly see your CNAM while others may not.

Provisioning outbound Caller-ID Name

The carrier provisions the CNAM for every hosted number based on the first and last name on your account. They provision your caller-ID name through several carrier and caller-ID providers. The provisioning process usually completes within 5 business days after you have activated your phone number.  After this time, please allow at least 2 weeks for the CNAM information to propagate through various CNAM databases.

If you decided to port your phone number, the new carrier will re-provision your caller-ID name. The provisioning process can not start until the porting process completes.

ACE - Expert

 • 

34.7K Messages

11 years ago

If you got a new number, then it may take a while for the name to get distributed to the directory services used by the phone provider of the people you are calling.

As far as incoming, if the number calling you is unlisted or unpublished, then the name wouldn't be available to be shown.

ACE - Expert

 • 

34.7K Messages

11 years ago

For more information about the situation, you can click this link:

http://www.listyourself.net/WhitePaperWhyCNAMDoesNotWork.jsp

While I would not pay a thin penny for the service they provide, they make many valid points.  One of them is... there is not "one" single CNAM database used by all telephone providers to which all telephone providers submit information.

Employee

 • 

581 Messages

11 years ago

Hello echozulu I understand your Outgoing Caller ID information is not displaying correctly to those that receive your calls. We apologize about any inconvenience this is causing and would like to help you by ensuring your telephone number is provisioned correctly across our AT&T database.

jeffermc and beebeesa provided some good information regarding other providers and how caller id information is obtained. Each provider is responsible for ensuring their databases have current and accurate information for callers across their networks. When AT&T provides you with a telephone number and you agree to display your outgoing caller id information, the caller ID information is available to other providers to identify you when you call one of their subscribers.I have sent you a private message to gather specific details and investigate your situation further. Smiley Happy

Contributor

 • 

3 Messages

7 years ago

We switched from Comcast to At&t recently and people that we call don't know who we are because only our phone number shows on their caller ID not our name (as it did with Comcast).  Is there a way to adjust this?

Contributor

 • 

1 Message

7 years ago

My largest frustration with my landline is receiving unwanted phone calls, especially from solicitors.  An easy way to remedy this problem is to block phone calls that list the caller ID as "Unavailable".  Why doesn't this feature enable this capability or enable in the "Call Blocking" feature for the user to block caller ID descriptions and not be limited to only phone numbers? 

Not finding what you're looking for?
New to AT&T Community?
New to the AT&T Community? Start by visiting the Community How-To.
New to the AT&T Community?
Visit the Community How-To.