1899/18866 Now coming up as International Call

JPR

Is this new?

When I use either 1899 or 18866, Caller Display units show me as an International call. I am sure my own number came up before.

Many people don't like accepting calls without numbers or they think they are call centres overseas or whatever.

I assumed the calls would be routed through somewhere abroad but is this the price we pay for the cheap calls (apart from 3 p) ?

mike_paterson

Shows correct phone number for me - just tried it by calling my mobile !

markdavey

JPR wrote:

Is this new?

When I use either 1899 or 18866, Caller Display units show me as an International call. I am sure my own number came up before.

Many people don't like accepting calls without numbers or they think they are call centres overseas or whatever.

I assumed the calls would be routed through somewhere abroad but is this the price we pay for the cheap calls (apart from 3 p) ?

These cheap call providers use carriers from all over the world and buy their minutes in bulk. They can route your call whever they like to obtain the cheapest route. It could be the case that they are routing your call via a foreign network to achieve the best price for it. This can be different for each call you make so sometimes it will show the number and sometimes you will get 'Out of Area'

santana-mx3

markdavey wrote:

These cheap call providers use carriers from all over the world and buy their minutes in bulk. They can route your call whever they like to obtain the cheapest route. It could be the case that they are routing your call via a foreign network to achieve the best price for it. This can be different for each call you make so sometimes it will show the number and sometimes you will get 'Out of Area'

Yes, sometimes the number will be displayed as a normal UK number eg. 020 xxxx xxxx.
Sometimes it will be displayed in an international format, equivalent to how you would dial the number from Europe eg. 004420xxxxxxxx.
Sometimes it will be displayed as "International" (if you have the sort of caller display equipment which differentiates between this and Withheld/Unavailable).
Sometimes it will be displayed as Unavailable.

What fun! It's a lot harder to screen calls by caller display these days.

BexTech

mike_paterson wrote:

Shows correct phone number for me - just tried it by calling my mobile !

Always works fine with calls to mobiles, as they always display international numbers, plus more than likely calls are routed differently.

BexTech

JPR wrote:

Is this new?

When I use either 1899 or 18866, Caller Display units show me as an International call. I am sure my own number came up before.

Many people don't like accepting calls without numbers or they think they are call centres overseas or whatever.

I assumed the calls would be routed through somewhere abroad but is this the price we pay for the cheap calls (apart from 3 p) ?

Nothing new, I've been using 18866/1899 for almost two years now, and it has always displayed International on call to landlines during the daytime weekdays.

santana-mx3

BexTech wrote:

Nothing new, I've been using 18866/1899 for almost two years now, and it has always displayed International on call to landlines during the daytime weekdays.

Not quite so consistent for me. It does sometimes come through normally for me (eg. 01234567890) during the daytime on weekdays, without the international symbol on a caller diaply unit that does have one. This is for calls made using 18866.