Caller Name (CNAM) is the alphanumeric description displayed on the Caller ID interface for customers (or businesses) who subscribe to the Caller ID service to identify the caller. The format of CNAM is supported by up to 15 printable ASCII characters, including letters from A through Z, numbers from 0 through 9, and a range of special characters including periods and commas.

Functionality

When a call is placed to a customer (or business) with a subscription to the Caller ID service, the terminating carrier is responsible for determining the registered CNAM for the caller.

For example, if a caller at (415) 555-1212 (San Francisco) places a call to a customer at (480) 555-1212 (Phoenix), only the phone number of the San Francisco caller is passed to the terminating carrier in Phoenix. To provide the CNAM of the San Francisco caller to the customer, the terminating carrier (Phoenix) must perform a database lookup (known as a dip) in any Line Information Database (LIDB). LIDB providers sell CNAM information to the carriers to provide this information to their customers who subscribe to the Caller ID service.

In the United States, multiple LIDB providers attempt to sell their CNAM information to many carriers. Terminating carriers (also known as a Local Exchange Carrier or LEC) have relationships with only a single LIDB provider. However, many of the larger LIDB providers (also known as Tier 1 providers) share their CNAM information to maximize the CNAM presentation. If an LIDB provider receives a CNAM request for a number they do not administer, they perform a lookup across their partner databases to locate the CNAM information.

Limitations

CNAM delivery might fail or present invalid values due to any of the following reasons:

• Multiple LIDB providers maintaining the CNAM information.
• LIDB providers do not share all their information with every other provider. If a carrier's LIDB provider lacks the proper CNAM information, the CNAM delivery fails. Service providers cannot guarantee 100% CNAM delivery.
• Limitation of cell phone carrier networks. CNAM delivery success rate is less than 1% on cellular phones.
• Most terminating carriers do not perform a CNAM lookup for toll-free numbers (that is, where the Caller ID is toll-free). CNAM delivery has a high rate of inaccuracy for toll-free numbers.
• CNAM information cached by terminating carriers is outdated. Guidelines for the cache duration of CNAM entries are undefined.

Administration and Setup

Carriers provide numbers only after eliminating and scrubbing CNAM information from their respective LIDB partner networks. We do not alter the CNAM entries in the LIDB databases prior to placing the numbers into service unless requested otherwise (for example, numbers in Local Caller ID packages).

We work with multiple industries with unique laws and regulatory oversight. We have received requests to populate CNAM for numbers. To address these requests, we have partnered with a Tier 1 LIDB provider capable of maximizing the CNAM presentation nationwide through the combination of their carrier clients as well as their data-sharing agreements with other Tier 1 LIDB providers.

You can also use the LiveVox platform to ensure that a company’s name is displayed correctly in the CNAM for outgoing calls. This ensures that outbound calls are configured with customized CNAM information for both U.S. and Canada.