More specifically, when will my new cell phone show my name when I call out? Right now it shows up as “Out of area.” Is this something that will happen with time, or is there something I need to do?
If someone programs me into their phone, will the name they programmed me with show up?
My cheezy little Tracfone will show any phone number when someone calls…however, unless I have saved that person into my phone book, it doesn’t show an ID. Rather than enter all numbers, if you called me, I could save the info and just add your name.
I don’t know if your outgoing caller ID works on landline caller ID. That might be a preference you can set.
All wireless carriers treat cell phones as unlisted numbers so your information is not transmitted along with the caller ID data when you make a call. The person receiving a call should be able to see your phone number, but not your name. How it appears may vary; when I call someone, it shows up as “wireless caller.”
If someone has explicitly programmed your name and phone number into their phone, then the phone will match the phone number with their phonebook entry and show your name when you call. This all happens inside the phone and relies only on getting the phone number from the caller ID data.
I don’t know about my own cheesy tracfone, but I can think of at least three cellphone users that are IDed on my land line when they call. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t consciously set anything up to do that. In fact, when Autolycus calls me, his father’s name comes up. He didn’t know that until I told him.
My Trac Fone’s “voice mail” doesn’t work. I’ve tried setting it, gone via customer service…but then I realized that I don’t want it to work. I generally keep the phone in the car for emergencies and forget to check it. Some would wonder wtf I don’t call back.
Anyway, point being, I don’t know that all advertised features work on Trac Fones. They also have some disclaimer about how not everything works in all areas. I don’t think a call to a landline will be rejected (for not having a caller ID) because calls will come through from payphones etc.
On my landline, Alltel customers show up with names, as do Centennial, Verizon, and AT&T. Tracphones and other prepaids wouldn’t necessarily be in a person’s name would they?
Everything else shows up as Cellular Call.
On the cell phone I don’t know for sure, anyone who calls me seems to be in my phonebook already.
It could be that the record keeping is too much. A woman I know said that when her family comes up from Mexico, they buy a Trac Fone. After a couple weeks, the vacation is over and they toss the phone when they go home.
BTW I started another thread about things that are cheaper than their parts. A replacement batt for my Trac Fone will run me $35; until Wally pulled them off the shelves, I think I could get it for $38 (and hey, I’d get a new charger + a phone to use if this one dies).
Anyway I ended up ordering a new one from Trac Fone, since Wally doesn’t have the new model I want yet. I could have ordered the “old” one from Trac Fone but this new one says it stores the phone book on the SIM card, which I guess/hope/pray means that I won’t have to re-enter them if I later damage it or whatever—just put the old SIM in a new phone.
Sorry for the digression. Point I wanted to make: the Trac Fone site says you can’t have more than 2 Trac Fones. I don’t know what’s up with that.
My cell phone plan through Alltel is shared with 4 of us - mom, dad, me, bro. For the longest time, our caller ID came up as My Mom’s Name no matter which phone we were calling from, because hers was the name on the account. This was weird for me and bro.
We asked Alltel if they could fix it and they did. Now when I make a call, my name shows up on Caller ID (albeit misspelled…)
Shortly after, dad got a phone on our plan. His phone comes up as “Cell Phone Ohio” with the number. I guess it’s not automatic to have your name on there.
Anyway, have you tried talking to Tracphone (I assume that’s your carrier?) to see what they can/will do? It would appear that every carrier is different and asking the General Public isn’t really going to get you anywhere.
My Motorola V176 (from Tracfone) has a place in the settings menu where I can choose to show or hide Caller ID for outgoing calls. On “show” it displays the number and “wireless caller.” On “hide” it says only “private.”
Cool. I was looking for something like that and didn’t find it. I’ll look again.
Menu
Settings
In Call Set-up
My Caller ID