Are There Caller ID Services For Cell Phones?
Greg Wilson
August 22, 2008
You have a caller ID on your cell phone that you use all of the time, but it does not necessarily work like the one that you have had on your landline phone in the past. This caller ID for mobile phone shows you who is calling by name, but only if you have that person saved in your contact information. A strange call may come through by number only, but is that all that a cell phone caller ID can do?
You can run your own form of caller ID when an unknown number comes up on your cell phone. You can look at the area code to see what general area from within the US the call is being placed. You can then see if the prefix can tell you the town or city where the caller lives or has at least gotten their phone contract. That is about all you can get from the number, but it can help with a few clues to identity.
There is some new software that can be used on a limited number of mobile devices that will display the name of a caller if that information is out there. The problems with this is that this is expensive to own, and does not work all of the time. Private or restricted numbers will still be displayed as such. You may get a state, but may not get a name. These are limited at best, at least at the present time.
The main problem with true caller ID for cell phones is that the numbers coming from mobile phones are more protected than those coming from landlines. It might be easier to get the caller ID information when calls coming to your cell are from a landline, but if not, the data about the caller is more protected. In fact, you may never get much if a number is from a prepaid account.
What can you do then until this caller ID is common? If you need to know from where a call is coming, you can always try to use reverse cell phone lookup to see if you can get more information. You may find that you can get a name to go with the number, even when it does not yet come up on cell phones through caller ID.
You can run your own form of caller ID when an unknown number comes up on your cell phone. You can look at the area code to see what general area from within the US the call is being placed. You can then see if the prefix can tell you the town or city where the caller lives or has at least gotten their phone contract. That is about all you can get from the number, but it can help with a few clues to identity.
There is some new software that can be used on a limited number of mobile devices that will display the name of a caller if that information is out there. The problems with this is that this is expensive to own, and does not work all of the time. Private or restricted numbers will still be displayed as such. You may get a state, but may not get a name. These are limited at best, at least at the present time.
The main problem with true caller ID for cell phones is that the numbers coming from mobile phones are more protected than those coming from landlines. It might be easier to get the caller ID information when calls coming to your cell are from a landline, but if not, the data about the caller is more protected. In fact, you may never get much if a number is from a prepaid account.
What can you do then until this caller ID is common? If you need to know from where a call is coming, you can always try to use reverse cell phone lookup to see if you can get more information. You may find that you can get a name to go with the number, even when it does not yet come up on cell phones through caller ID.
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