Looking for Vonage third-party software developer

I know I've requested that feature from them. It must be easy to do. I'm guessing they don't want to deal with an increase in support calls due to people goofing up block lists, blaming block lists for missed calls, or whatever else they can come up with.

You could always install a free IP PBX at home. :-) Cheaper than $100 but obviously takes far more resources and a large learning curve.

Thanks, Scott

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Does VONAGE allow you to use your own equipment? When I last looked the answer was "no way".

I use Asterisk and a connection via

and am no longer plagued by all the dirtbags calling up during dinnner time trying to sell crap, beg for donations etc. The trick I found that works the best is to set asterisk up to ask for the extension number to forward the call to or press "For Fred press 1, for Ethyl press 2, if you are a telemarketer press 3"). The obvious happens when the press 3 - they get a short message and the call is forcefully terminated. So far most of the telemarketer calls seem to hit the timeout because their automatic call device isn't smart enough to parse the spoken announcement and then press the correct number.

It is a pain in the neck to learn the quaint regexp-based language asterisk is programmed in. If that isn't one's cup of tea one can probably get the same functionality from the Linksys consumer PBX product (SPA-9000), but it is still ~$400 mailorder.

This looks like some analog phone thing. Why would you want to do that to a nice digital phone call?

-wolfgang

Any idea if they'll let me spoof my cell phone's number on outbound CID?

They don't offer inbound calls in my area, but that doesn't really bother me, my cell has unlimited incoming anyway, but I want to be able to dial out "from" a local number.

Who do you think owns the router, the cordless phone, and the headset?

I work as a tech journalist, so the hard way is my money. Maybe someone will pay me enough for a review of asterisk to buy a SPA-9000. Or perhaps Linksys will send me a review copy; I know Cisco's people quite well. :-)

Because of the not-so-nice digital phone calls it blocks, of course. Besides, I've read favorable reports from several Vonage users about this gizmo.

It is probably best to touch base with Teliax support to see if this is available on new signups. I have no problem using one of 3 different outgoing CLID's with them, but I can also see how this may eventually be an issue for the whole industry. The whole outgoing CLID under user control is a sticky wicket...

I recall reading on the customer's-only part of the site that they are taking requests for new service areas to move into. While is a long shot, it might also be something they might go for.

Right next to the walk?

-wolfgang

Do you have programming control over with SIP gateway? Last time I looked into it Vonage was one of the biggest pains in the neck to work with. The locked up the SIP gateway so you had no say over the features "your" gateway provided and they totally flat-out forbade you from using anything but their gateway. Has this changed?

Well, if money is tight, asterisk is the way to go. Total cost $0, assuming you already own a spare PC.

The way I see it, the only reason for going to VOIP is to get better sound, having a more featureful phone, and more convenience (such as first-generation digital transcripts of your phone calls). Folks that convert the nice digital voip signal to a ratty 2-wire pots line and then attach other low-fidelity POTS phones and accessories are getting the worst of both worlds. They get the insanely high delay of voip with the awful sound of their POTS phone.

Does Vonage really save folks enough compared to a POTS 3cent/min long distance suppliers to make it worth the hassle?

-wolfgang

Nope.

I gather that I don't. Fortunately, I don't need it to use the gizmo in question.

Do you know of a software product that will block private, anonymous, and wildcard-specified calling numbers? I believe that was my question.

Short answer, on Vonage you can't -- You can't block anything because you don't have that level of access to the gizmo in question.

It's actually very solvable -- Fines measured in the millions of dollars, per violation, to be split between the AG's office which handles the case, the victim of the number that was spoofed, and the recipient of the call.

As for who pays, it's a hot potato game. If I have a complaint, it goes to my telco. If my telco can identify where the call came from (direct customer, other telco) then they point the finger, if not, they pay.

That, combined with a FCC+CRTC mandated "block overseas calls" and "block overseas calls with a 'local' DID" would solve it.

I bet you'd find that hunting down the originator isn't so hard after all. It neatly avoids any issues where legitimate users want to spoof

-- As the authorized user (owner?) of my own cell phone number, I'd never complain that I spoofed it since doing so would result in myself paying a multi-million dollar fine, partially to myself but the rest to other assets.

I'd not have much use for a DID in my area anyway, I'll stick with my cell (unlimited incoming you see), just a toll free (if the price is right... I have 4.9c/minute with no monthly fee and no payphone fee right now)

I do have use for a DID which is a local call from my office, likely just call forwarded to my cell would be sufficient, although having an actual desk phone would be nice.

What I really need though, is the ability to make outbound calls to local numbers appearing as a local (ever try to order a pizza with an out-of-province phone number?)

Sure either Asterisk, SER/OpenSER (sip express router), sipX, YATE, Bayonne, OpenPBX or FreeSwitch. But the catch is you have to have control of your end of the sip connection otherwise there is nothing you can do.

BTW: A good site for getting up to speed on VOIP is:

It has lots of vendor-neutral info presented in "wiki" form.

-wolfgang

The same could be argued would solve spam. I just don't see the government all that concerned though. (I would be happy if they did, I just don't see any of them show much enthusiasm for investigating crimes that total to less than a million bucks.)

My favorite hack to solve illegitimate spoofing is technological. Each phone number one gets assigned comes with a cryptographically signed signing certificate. One then uses that certificate to sign the SIP header. The other side can check that the signature and the upstream signature is legit and the certificate matches the phone number that they certificate is issued for.

Come to think of it, this isn't actually much different from secure SIP/RTP calls. Too bad most hardware and software doesn't do secure calls.

Now that you mention it, I think I probably do -- inadvertently. The desk phones both have free DIDS from Ipkall so outgoing calls from them are setup to force that DID number to show. Those DID are in the

360 area code (which is 500 miles to the north of me). No wonder the pizza place acts funny.

-wolfgang

I see. That explains why the Privacy Corps folks are able to get $120 for their Callier ID Manager.