After speaking with TAC about this issue, there is NOT a way to do this in a H323 gateway. The Caller ID name would have to be configured on each phone and your telco would have to give you control of the Caller ID. The name that is displayed with your number otherwise is controlled by your local carrier. For instance, if you have Bellsouth, Verizon, Sprint, or any other carrier for your local service and AT&T for your long distance, you will have to go to the local provider and not AT&T to have the name changed or to have them release control to you and you take care of it in your Call Manager. Depending on how many phones you have this may be a lot of additional administration that may not be worth the effort. May just be easier to have a PRI brought in with the name you wish to display attached to the PRI and set certain phones to use that PRI. May be a double benefit if you bill them for the call usage as well.

Thanks Roxy. But i want to know,if i have 800 # example 866-222-1111 and when ever the call goes out of this #, i want to display my company name instead of the above # to the other end people. is it possible. I heard, even if our local carrier send this name, but if the call crosses other providers, if they do not support or send the name, then my purpose will not solve. pls advice.

regards

esa

I've had the exact same conversation with 2 different long distance carriers, Bellsouth and AT&T and got the same answer from both. The name is controlled by the end carrier, therefore you could possibly put a name on the toll free number but there would be a lot of hoops to jump through but then the name may not show up on the far end. For instance, carriers like Bellsouth or AT&T may show the name but some local mom and pop carrier won't because the do not have the money to subscribe to those particular databases, so on the far end it will show Toll Free or Unknown. Unfortunately there is no common database for toll free numbers like there is for local numbers. About the only possible way to get around that is you would have to have the toll free number point to a local number but even then it may not always work.

There are more elements in play here.

Example call:

1) Jane calls Bob.

2) Jane's telco sends SS7 data about the call to the next-hop switch or tandem. This SS7 data includes the Caller ID NUMBER ONLY.

3) Eventually the call arrives at Bob's telco switch that Bob's line is attached to.

4) If the receiving switch supports Caller ID, Bob has Caller ID Name, and a handful of other reasons all equal true, the switch does an NPAC lookup to determine what CNAM database it should query to get the Caller ID name for the number sent.

Note: The SS7 data has a dedicated field for Caller ID number. This is different than other things such as the billing number. If the switch isn't behaving properly, it could do a look-up on the wrong number.

5) Bob's switch does a CNAM query of Jane's telco CNAM database for Jane's number.

Note: It is entirely possible for the CNAM record to be wrong. This is not uncommon but takes effort to find someone who has access to the [ancient] system to correct it.

6) The CNAM database at Jane's telco returns the Caller ID Name value stored for Jane's number.

7) Bob's switch send the caller ID name and number down the line in an Information Element for ISDN, or in analog fashion between the first and second ring for FXO lines.

8) Bob's CPE shows the information appropriately.

This means that you can't set the name, period. The best you can do is get your telco to not restrict what caller ID number you send on your circuits. This way you can spoof the actual customer. If your telco really likes you, they may even update a CNAM record for a number you own with the name of your customer. This is NOT common though.

One additional (large) caveat to this: Certain telcos do not follow this design properly. Some make cached copies of CNAM databases and just return results from the cached copy. This makes lookups easier for them because they don't have to do a true lookup. This creates all sorts of problems though because they do not refresh their cache regularly. This is what is happening when you call Bob on AT&T and his number shows correctly. You then call Sally on Comcast from the same number and your Caller ID name shows up incorrectly. Comcast in that case likely has an old cached copy of your CNAM data... Good luck finding anyone at a carrier who knows they do that and how to fix it.

To make an outbound call from UC Manager, you would need to create translation patterns that perform calling party transformations on the number. Essentially add a customer ID on the front of the translation pattern such as #[customer ID][telephone number]. Have it strip the #[customer id], set the calling party information to the appropriate number, and prefix your PSTN access code.