Caller ID on AT&T

You won't see someone calling from a Sprint phone or any one calling from outside the 340 area code. If someone with a stateside cell phone calls, you will see it if they are calling locally. I do however, see stateside callers on a stateside cell phone. Go figure.

goalusvi, no, it isn't your phone. I did that and it drove me crazy! I have to have caller ID. Everyone advises here to have a 340 number in order to conduct business, but I found that everyone I knew had cellphones, so it really didn't matter. Ideally, I would have a local home phone and a mainland cellphone.

I kept my stateside number (Sprint) and I can see all caller ID except if people call from their home phones for some reason. I recommend NOT getting a 340 number.

When I was renting the Apt. below my home and again while selling a car I did not return any calls that required a long distance charge from my land line -- I do not have or need a cellular phone and am not sure everyone has one. I do return calls that are listed as 340.

I called ATT about this same problem: 340 att cellphones not able to display CallerID from stateside calls.

My family recently bought 3 att cell phones in the VI with 340 numbers. We added a fourth to that account for my daughter who is still living in Ohio because att said she needed to have a “340” phone to be on our family plan. She bought her phone in Ohio and had it added to our new 340 acct. All four phones have this caller id problem.

So it has something to do with '340' -and not where your phone is calling from or receiving calls from, or where you buy it from.

One store-based tech thought our phone needed a new sim chip. That didn't work. (Reading the web msg boards indicates you can get different "solutions" from different reps, ie, they're guessing.)

The national att tech I spoke with was very nice and tried to help. He said there is no solution report in their tech system about this problem. He did a test on some 340 numbers to see if the caller id was working. Not sure exactly what he did. Next, he went to his tech manager. Finally, the best he could do was create a Case Report for their engineering department (case #cm20080730_3606108). He said I would be getting a call back. I’ll post the info if they get back to me.

He did say that Caller ID is free, and they don't claim it will work everywhere. And that "they should post this info in the 340 area to alert customers... but they didn't."

He agreed with me that it isn't a network 'hardware' issue, as stateside phones connecting to the same network down in the VI don't seem to have this problem. And it isn't about 'where' you bought your phone, since we bought one of our phones in Ohio and another down there -signing up BOTH with a 340 number, -and both have the caller id problem. So it’s got to be a network software issue related to 340. And being a software developer I can tell you this: they could fix it if they wanted to. Perhaps their engineering department will.

If enough people call and complain they'll do something about it. att tech support 1-800-331-0500 (customer service...ask for tech support)

If you are going to complain about issues a few other things they should work on:

1. If you look at their service maps they know where the dead spots in the VI fix them. The whole North Shore on STX towards Cane Bay. No service.

2. Not all their cell sites have generators.

3. It would be great to have the latest 3G service in the VI so you can get higher speed data on your air card.

If you are wishing for the stars might as well wish big.

Jim

PS I would not be surprised if the caller ID problem doesn't have something to do with Innovative and isn't AT&T's fault.

Well, I'm glad to know that it's not just us!

Neil - it sounds like we had the same conversation with AT&T that you did.

If other people do call and complain get them to give you a credit on your account. One of the times that my husband talked to them he spoke with a supervisor and because we had been on the phone for a while and they couldn't provide a service they told us they said they could provide they credited our account for half of our bill. Maybe if more people call and demand a credit they'll actually fix the problem since it would be cheaper to fix it than to credit our accounts???

goalusvi, best of luck to you. I started complaining about that same problem back in 2001 when it was still Cingular. Then again after they became AT&T. The reps in customer service don't seem to have a clue that this problem exists. When I told them that people need to be warned by the office in STX that they will lose their caller ID, they simply told me that you don't pay for it, so there is nothing that they can do (i.e. take the charge for caller ID off the bill). Basically take it or leave it, with no real interest in trying to fix the problem!

Well...it worked with David. *-)

Y'all remember when your phone rang and you had NO IDEA who was on the other end... and that was "ok" with you?

Remember when people didn't feel the need to call you "just to say hi" just because they were bored and stuck in traffic?

Remember when a "text message" meant a note from your mom?

My god, how did we survive?

I wonder how people manage without call waiting too. Sometimes I will do all my household chores etc when I'm on the phone with my friends, safe knowing that if a business-related call comes in I will get it.

i have both caller id and call waiting on my att cellphone. but my caller id does not work as well as my friend's sprint, who gets ids from even non-340 numbers. my call waiting works just fine. we don't own a landline so we rely heavily on our cellphones.
i had verizon before i came down here and i switched to att thinking that we were staying here long-term but... (long story).
i appreciate the information from neil.

I have sprint, I can see when AT&T numbers call me, some landlines in the mainland and most other cell phone providers in the mainland. If someone with a land line here tries to call me, I can't see there number, but if I call them , I've been told that they see my Sprint number.

With AT%T if I have the # in my address book the number appears.

I have a stateside AT&T number and I see both Sprint and AT&T on my phone.

Tippi

With AT%T if I have the # in my address book the number appears.

Bombi... please elaborate.

Does your ATT cellphone have a 340 area code? And is the caller id working for you when you receive stateside calls? Or those just from within the 340 area code? (which is what everyone else is experiencing)

I'm pretty sure that it is the caller id info packet (which is part of the call packet coming to your phone) that your contact directory sees and matches up to what's in your directory --displaying the caller as you have them listed in the directory, rather than as the basic caller 'id'.

I get around the no-caller-ID -displayed but never answering the phone. If you want me, you MUST leave a message. Ahhh, peace.

I was exactly like you Jules but now I'm getting better at answering calls from 'unknown' (every call) and it's kind of nice, it's always a surprise when I answer my phone like back in the good old days before caller id