further 'fone foo

[eirias]

Curiouser and curiouser. I made another test call and this time, GCI Dude told me he thinks I'm being routed by my long-distance provider over Voice Over IP, which isn't required to provide the right caller ID number somehow. AFAIK I was never informed of such a thing. He suggested I take it up with them and get a complaint number so he can have a contact with someone in my company to work out what the heck is happening.

I'm wondering 2 things now:
1) Should they be routing me over VOIP without my knowledge or consent? I don't understand the technology well enough to know whether this is meaningful or something to be annoyed about outside of the quality issue.
2) My phone setup is maybe a bit strange; SBC (telecom giant) was forced to lease some of its lines to competitors, who for some unclear reason were able to offer prices I liked better, so I have phone service through Sage Telecom. AFAIK my long distance is through them -- we only pay one bill and it's got both local and LD charges -- but also AFAIK SBC actually owns and maintains the phone lines. Hmm. How do I figure out what's what? Do I call Sage and say, Hi, who's my long distance provider? Or would that just make me look like an idiot?

Comments

[exilejedi.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the "last mile" to your place is owned by SBC, but that they just have your traffic routed to Sage instead of to the main SBC network. Sage could then do whatever they want to get your traffic routed to wherever it's supposed to go... Sage is definitely the place to start (and the likely culprit).

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

While it is possible, there are warning signs here that GCI dude is confused or stupid and trying to spread the blame.

First of all, nearly all long distance these days takes a hop through some VoIP system somewhere -- carriers long ago started using IP on their internal networks, and these days a fair number of calls even take a leg or two over the public internet somewhere.

Second, nobody is required to provide correct CLI/CNID ("caller ID") information, and any customer who buys lines in bulk, whether a direct-to-customer VoIP shack with a T-3 line or some corporate office with a T-1 can decline to provide it. This information is only one part -- the least important part -- of the call's origin information; it wouldn't be used by the switches complaining about "dial 1" and the like, because the telcos have their own routing information attached to the call unrelated to the CNID (otherwise they couldn't bill calls with blocked caller ID!).

Third, it is extremely unlikely that the carrier would just randomly route your call through some random VoIP shack somewhere. This would screw billing records impossibly, and if there's one thing phone companies hate it's not knowing how to bill something. However, it would be consistent with some of your other results. Direct-to-consumer VoIP business are basically running a business coupling some IP widget into the telephone network (PSTN); if your call emerged into the PSTN in a weird place with bogus origin information, it could cause all of the problems you describe. But since the bogus origin information would be not just the CNID but all of the billing record, this could amount to serious fraud against the telco or its customers.

I would guess that Sage is the people to talk to. If they in fact are delivering your call to some random VoIP shack in Florida, that's fairly bad. It's quite likely to result in billing anomalies, and your phone company in the worst case could end up in serious hot water with the FCC. Get a complaint number at every stage of the process that you can; these organizations won't move without a paper trail.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the detailed response. It's quite possible that Dude understood fine and it's my conveyance of info that's garbled. No matter the reason for the anomalies, I'm still not really clear on why they happen only with calls to Alaska -- everyone else can ID my calls just fine, and I don't appear to be calling from FL -- so something is very strange.

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

according to tod, it's not at all unusual for a telco to route over voip. most likely your long distance is via sage if thats who you pay for all your phone stuff. at the very least, it's their job to sbc if there's an issue; you don't need to call sbc to get them to fix their lines (though... they are very slow to move at times, especially when you aren't their customer).

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

or just do what nonnihil said, since he explained it all far more coherently than i did ;)