Caller ID Name Configuration

What is Caller ID?

What is Caller ID and How Does It Work?

To request an update see the update Caller ID section.

Caller ID is a phone feature that provides the name and number of a calling party, if available. Caller ID technically only supplies the phone number of the calling party, but its usage as a term has effectively made it synonymous with the calling name, too. The name of the calling party is actually provided by a service called CNAM.

CNAM (“Calling NAMe”) is an outside telecom service that phone companies use to pair incoming numbers with names. Unlike phone numbers, CNAMs are not centralized databases. A carrier can choose from many different CNAMs. Each CNAM maintains its own private database on phone number/name pairs in the United States and abroad.

No FCC guidelines regulate carrier accuracy, carriers can maintain their caller ID databases as they see fit. 

There are several interactions with caller ID in telephony today:
 

1. VOIP to VOIP
   
   Calling from Nextiva (Voice over Internet Protocol) to another VoIP phone. Nextiva will offer both a Caller ID Name and a Caller ID Number on this call, whoever the carrier is for the other VoIP phone (for example Vonage) will pull in both the Caller ID Name and Number and will pass it along as is to their customer's phone. So any updates we make to your Caller ID will update right away in this scenario.
   
   NOTE: By default, Nextiva will pass along the name of your user, if you would like to have a different name passed, please contact Nextiva support.
    
   • For example, in Nextiva's records for the number (480) 555-1212 we have listed ABC Inc., when this customer calls to someone who also uses VoIP, we are able to pass both the phone number and name along so the person receiving the call will see (480) 555-1212 ABC Inc.
      
2. VOIP to a Cell phone or Landline (No Caller ID)
   
   When calling from Nextiva to a non-Voip phone that doesn't have a caller ID service, Nextiva will offer both a Caller ID Name and a Caller ID Number on this call. The carrier will pull in only the number portion of what we offer, then the phone will try to look up in its list of saved contacts what name might go with that number. If there is no contact then the phone will either just show unknown or a location based on the phone number itself.
    
   • For example, the 602 area code is in Arizona, while the next 3 digits of the phone number will specify the Telephone Exchange so 222 is for Phoenix specifically. Depending on the phone carrier, they will use some variant of this information (city and state) for the Caller ID Name.  You can look up specifics about an area code and exchange here.
      
3. VOIP to a Cell phone or Landline (Caller ID)
   
   When calling from Nextiva to a caller ID enabled phone, Nextiva will offer both a Caller ID Name and a Caller ID Number on this call. The carrier for the phone will pull only the number portion of what we offer, then that carrier will look up in its own Caller ID table to see what name should go along with the number it sees, then pass that on down the wire, formatted correctly for the analog phone that their customer is using.
    
   • For example, Nextiva may update the phone number (480) 555-1212 to have a caller ID of ABC Inc., but if Spectrum doesn't download that change to its caller ID table, anyone calling to a Spectrum line will see their entry of Nextiva.
      
   The third situation is the type of Caller ID update that takes time. Each of the local phone carriers has its own Caller ID table. Each company stays updated with through several managed Caller ID databases run by different companies. All of the different carriers will periodically update their own Caller ID tables based on these databases, however, they are charged each time they update their data. Large carriers have the funding to regularly update their records, while smaller carriers may not update their tables as often. What Nextiva does to address caller ID issues is to update one of the centrally managed databases to have the requested Caller ID Name go along with the Caller ID Number. It takes up to 15 business days for this request to process, after that, it is then up to the local carriers as to when they update their own records given the cost associated with doing so.

Update Caller ID

NOTES:

• Nextiva cannot update the caller ID on fax numbers.
• Not all carriers will support CNAM for Toll-Free numbers. Nextiva can push updates for Toll-Free, but not all receiving carriers will support it.

To request an update to your caller ID, submit a case with the following information:
 

• Phone Number(s): The phone number(s) that need a caller ID update.
• Address: Required by some carriers, but is NOT published.
• New Caller ID: Maximum 15 characters (alphanumeric only) including spaces.

Nextiva will send the caller ID update request to their partnering carriers, who will update the national caller ID database. Please allow time for the new caller ID to display on the recipients’ phones. Carriers dip the national caller ID database at different frequencies (e.g. some carriers dip weekly, while others dip monthly or quarterly), so times will vary.  Most of the time, this process is complete within 15 days.