I’m under the impression that calls between voip.ms accounts or DIDs, which show up as “local caller” in call logs, are not charged. That has been my observation for years.
Today I received a call from 438431XXXX to one of my DID’s (my fax DID in fact). Calls to that DID are usually garbage calls, as this one seemed to be - I answered, said hello, heard silience for about 10 seconds, then I hung up.
The curious thing in the logs - it was zero cost and said “Inbound - local caller”. I checked the number on NPANXXSource, here are a few nuggets of what came back:
NXX Type-Dedicated to Cellular
Wire Center Name-MONTREAL-ATWATER
Wireless Block-Yes
Carrier Common Name-Bell Mobility
So why was the calling DID identified as “local caller” in the logs?
On a tangent, it would be great if voip.ms offered inbound-only DID’s for 2FA or SMS authentication that checked out as wireless/cellular (not PSTN) for the various financial and gov’t services that otherwise reject voip DID’s for that purpose, but I’m sure voip companies have heard that request for years now but seem unwilling or unable to provide a product like that.
When I look at the call detail records - ie the call logs - I see 2 types or catagories for inbound calls: “Inbound DID” and “Inbound - local caller”. Calls identified as “Inbound - local caller” (which I’ll refer to as ILC) never have a cost associated with them.
ILC calls come from other voip.ms customers or accounts or DID’s. If anyone with a voip.ms DID calls me, or I call them, the cost is zero, regardless how long the call, or their DID’s area code.
Looking up the carrier for a given telephone number is perhaps the issue here (when it comes to my original question). I just looked up one of my DID’s - one that was ported from Rogers home-phone (not cellular) to voip.ms.
npanxxSource says the carrier is Rogers. FreeCarrierLookup says the carrier is ISP Telecom. ISP Telecom is, for what-ever reason, voip.ms. So npanxxSource is wrong regarding that DID.
But for the 438431XXXX number, both FreeCarrierLookup and npanxxSource say the Carrier is Bell Mobility and is a Wireless number. But the odd thing, the point of this thread, is that it is identified as an ILC (a “local caller”) in the call log, and billed at zero cost (the call was 14 seconds but billed at 0.0000).
How can a Bell Mobility number be a “local caller” in the voip.ms billing context?
Ok I see now, I had to adjust Call Type and/or Call Billing.
Thanks!
Under the “Description” column all my “Inbound-Local Caller” are my own sub accounts or my own DID’s calling in.
438431XXXX - This is not a phone number, it’s an identifier number of sorts, you should see that similar number under all calls. That got me awhile back I recall.
I anonymizied the number, replacing the last 4 digits with XXXX. I wasn’t sure if my post would be censored if I had put the full phone number. So can we get back to my original question - how can a Bell mobility number show up in my in-bound call log as a “local caller” ?
Note that the info from NPANXXSource (and other similar databases) may not be up to date or accurate… (NPANXXSource claim on their home page to update their database monthly.) I’ve had ported DIDs showing old information for months afterwards on other websites - don’t know about this particular one.)
I would expect Voip.ms’ list of its own DIDs to be accurate.
The DID in question - 438431XXXX is not available as part of the pool of DID’s that voip.ms offers (no did starting with 43843 is available). Freecarrierlookup says that is not number-portability-aware - specifically they say this:
This result is not number-portability aware. Due to regulations in Canada, Data247 cannot provide local number portabiliy data for Canadian phone numbers to customers unless they first get approval from the Canadian Local Number Portability Consortium (CLNPC).
I’ve checked a few numbers (land-lines) that have been ported from Rogers (home phone) and Bell Canada to voip.ms, and freecarrierlookup shows them as carrier=ISP Telecom (ie voip.ms).
Perhaps cellular wireless numbers that are ported to a different carrier (a voip carrier) won’t give correct carrier results on these on-line carrier lookups?
That exchange code is owned by Bell Cellular, Inc. Numbers in that range would not be in the generally available pool where voip.ms obtains new numbers. voip.ms gets their numbers from other carriers than Bell Cellular. (Numbers may be able to be ported in, but when you use the “Order DIDs” feature on the voip,ms website they only offer numbers from carriers that allow them to obtain new numbers. Numbers in some cities may be listed as “carrier order”, which will be ordered from a carrier that allows voip.ms to obtain new numbers.)
Local exchanges are assigned to carriers by 1000 blocks. Most older exchanges have all ten blocks assigned to the legacy carrier. Many of the lookup sites end their database at the 1000 block level. FreeCarrierLookup seems to be able to look up the actual end carrier - where allowed.
In that case, contact support and provide the tracking number for the call.
(Find the call under “Finances / Call Detail Report”, click on the call and look for the “Unique ID” at the bottom of the call details to include in your report.)
If another voip.ms subscriber is spoofing an account it needs to be stopped.