For the car and twenty-five dollars. . .

[rolanni]

. . .somewhere on this blessed device (aka the Droid2) there is a place where I can input the text I want to show up on YOUR caller ID whenandif I call you

Where is it?

Abundant Spanish Aunts!

Comments

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

Really??? That would be a very cool feature!

[pedanther]

Do you have a specific reason to believe this feature exists?

My experience is that in the usual course of events the text that appears on my caller ID whenandif someone calls me is something that I set on my device.

(You wouldn't belive - or perhaps you would - how large a percentage of my caller ID settings is taken up with variations of Don't answer this - they'll only try to sell you something you don't want or need.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Do you have a specific reason to believe this feature exists?

The fact that I could do this on at least two Tracfones and can do it on the phone at the day-job? (One of my regular phone contacts at the day-job comes up as COMPUTER GEEK -- he's the head of the IT department). Also, that on caller ID at the house when I call home, the legend pops up CELL PHONE while other callers-from-cell-phones display their names, their cellphone number or a goofy nickname, their choice.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

According to this http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/droid-x-apps/5625-caller-id-changing.html you probably can't do that. You can decide NOT to provide a caller ID, but if you send out an ID, it has to be yours. Sensible -- allowing spoofing of the sender ID would be poor.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Apparently people writing apps to display CallerID (both Apple and Android) have been sued because some company has a patent on it (even though the patent was applied for in 2002, long after CallerID and looking up the number in a local list to display the caller's name had become common).

It is illegal (certainly in Europe, and I believe also in the US) to make a call with a caller number which you don't own ('spoofing'). If you do own it (for instance business phones which want the return to be to a central switchboard) then it is allowed. Technically, of course, there's nothing stopping the calling software from changing it to any number, but anyone doing so will be caught, usually by their connectivity supplier (who can correlate the numbe with the account).

Note that this is only numbers (and a couple of special characters, like * and #), alphabetic charcaters are not possible.

In addition to this some cellphones allow (and the protocol used in GSM and WCDMA supports even if the phone doesn't) an alphanumeric ID which can be set to a user string. This is sent to the called end in addtition to the CID (it doesn't replace it), and the called end can choose to display either, both or neither of the pieces of information.

Note that the caller ID is always sent, by those networks which can handle it (all except a few old landline networks), to the called end. It can be suppressed by the terminating network (for instance some require an additional fee to provide CallerID, as a revenue-generating exercise because it doesn't cost them any extra), but telling your phne that you want to be anonymous doesn't actually change that, all it does is set a flag to tell the receiving equipment to not display it. Consumer equipment has to honour that, but 'official' equipment (like emergency services) can deisplay it regardless of the caller's preferences.

In this case, with Android, it seems that the software isn't in place to send the alphanumeric ID. This seems, as far as I have been able to ascertain, to be a general software deficiency. (The way the CallerID at the receiving end just says CELL PHONE instead of the number may indicate that the CID has been suppressed by the calling user's options, those should be available in a configuration option.

In order to test whether CallerID is being blocked by the sending phone, try calling home and prefixing the number by *82 (*UB) in the US (1470 in the UK, on GSM networks *31#, different numbers in other countries). That may enable it. Otherwise, call the phone (or network) provider to see whether the phone has an automatic block and if so how to release it.

(There's a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID), it's where I got the information about prefix codes outside GSM/UK.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I didn't know what the feature was called (besides Caller ID, which returned me 'way too much of the Wrong Stuff), so couldn't deploy google-foo

In the interest of Compleat Reporting, I tried the *82, which didn't produce results. Still CELL PHONE ME. Has a certain flow to it, actually. P'rhaps I'll change my name :)

[spiffikins]

Generally what appears in caller id is the phone number or something indicating that the caller has blocked caller id - if the recipient's phone system has mapped that phone number to something else, like their name, then their name will display.

At work, I've programmed the phone system directory - so when I call other people in our office, my name shows up on their phones. Since I programmed all the extensions, I could have given everyone any name I wanted and all the phones in the office would use those names.

I've never heard of being able to control what other people see when I call from my call phone though...if it is possible, I would think you'd have to do it through your cell phone provider.

Abundant Spanish Ants

[claire774.livejournal.com]

What?

If you guys are going to talk like that I'll just switch to Spanich.

ormigas espanoles abundantes.
From Chickie and Sophie: Hi chihuahua! ---cinquenta % anyway.
C.

Don't have a droid, but on most phones

[samrobinson.livejournal.com]

The most common thing to show up as associated with a given number is the name field in your address book. Sometimes other fields are also shown but that one's the most common. That's where the picture you can associate with a number is kept. You may find that other fields are also shown.

Re: Don't have a droid, but on most phones

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

A Clue! Let me see...

Re: Don't have a droid, but on most phones

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...and rats.

Oh, well. I'll just have to live in an imperfect world.

Re: Don't have a droid, but on most phones

[melita66.livejournal.com]

Are you on Verizon? A forum suggested this:

1. Sign-in to My Verizon.
2. Click on the My Plan tab.
3. Click on Add/change features.
4. Check the box near "Caller ID Blocking."
5. Click the Next button at the bottom of the form.

On my T-Mobile android phone (samsung), it's under settings, general calls, (maybe another layer), show my number.

Melita