I have a client that would like his company name to appear on caller ID. So far just his number appears. Here’s the scenario:
8XX number is pointed towards a Cisco phone. The phone’s actual number is a 561 number. Under FreePBX we have the “CID Num Alias” as the 888 number. We also have the company name under “Display Name”. When the client makes a call from the phone to any number it appears as the 888 number on caller ID, but the actual company name does not come up other than “unknown”.
That has nothing to do with your system. What the called party sees as caller ID name is provided by their telephone provider. They’re supposed to dip into CNAM for this information, but not every company does, or they use an old database or something.
The toll free provider should also have the CID name set up right and reported to CNAM, but again, not every company is in a hurry to do things like that.
if your problem is inbound CID on your 1-8XX line, then talk to the provider of that as they are not passing that info to your PBX. (Maybe double check your CLI output to be sure but it’s pretty much works by default)
If you want your outbound CID to be the 1-8XX number, talk to your Phone provider… if you are getting service from a “traditional” phone company then you won’t be able to spoof caller id unless you are under Centrex with them and request it.
However, many voip providers offer this service, its as easy as setting your outbound CID by either Extension or by Trunk.
Trixbox is a Linux distribution that bundled Asterisk together with FreePBX and some other software to allow people to do an install of a software based PBX. And, in my humble opinion, used to do a good job but have lately failed miserably to put together a good distro.
Other have turned to PBX in Flash, in my humble opinion, a superior product.
FreePBX is THE key thing to get a PBX up and running as it provides a GUI that allows you to configure Asterisk so that your phones, trunks, queues and what not to function.
Asterisk is the software that is the engine for all this.
To compare this against a car, Asterisk is the engine, the dial plan to make this work, FreePBX, is the body and fuel, the provider that supply a VoIP trunk is the road for all this.
I’d recommend not feeding the wife or kids if there are any until after the dishes are done. If you have neither get a dog and leave them on the floor has been known to work. specially when you don’t feed him/her regularly either
