Hyphens being added to CID on incoming calls

[GregV]

I'm running version 66.0.6 (Debian64)

I'm finding the PBX is adding hypens to the CID of inbound calling numbers.

e.g. 0291237744 is converted to 02-9123-7744
Hypehens are added to mobile numbers e.g. 0499999999 to 0499-999-999

The hypehs are not present in the SIP INVITE.

Also when adding an entry to the Domain Address Book, hyphens are added to the numbers you add.

Please advise how to remove this?

Thank you.

 

----issued resolved... remove country code from domain general settings

Edited April 8, 2021 by GregV
----issued resolved... remove country code from domain general settings

[Vodia PBX]

The hyphens are inserted in the "display" name, the number itself should not contain hyphens. E.g. "030-55578992" <sip:03055578992@vodia.com> it depends on the country code. It should help with the readability of the number. If there is a name already available or the number is in the address book, then the PBX should not do that replacement. What country code are you using?

[GregV]

1 hour ago, Vodia PBX said:

The hyphens are inserted in the "display" name, the number itself should not contain hyphens. E.g. "030-55578992" <sip:03055578992@vodia.com> it depends on the country code. It should help with the readability of the number. If there is a name already available or the number is in the address book, then the PBX should not do that replacement. What country code are you using?

Country code is 61 - Australia.

I like how it replaces the +61 with 0. That does help the readability. But the dashes do not. Is there anyway to modify the way the system localises numbers based on country code?

[Vodia PBX]

Well, the idea is to follow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Australia and present phone numbers in the format that the Australian human would be able to read it properly.

Right now you could take the country code out, however that has a lot more consequences that just adding the hyphens for readability. We could add a setting that suppresses the re-formatting, but before we do a step like this it would be great to understand what exactly the problem is. Is the formatting incorrect? 

[GregV]

In Australia we rarely hyphenate numbers.. We generally space the numbers out or have no spaces at all.

Most SIP carriers present calls with 11 digits including our country code (61).
This is then followed by the area code (single digit) then the number (8 digits)
Here is the chart;

Starts with	Replaced with	Display format	Use
614	04	04xx xxx xxx	Mobiles
612	02	02 xxxx xxxx	NSW
613	03	03 xxxx xxxx	Victoria
615	05	05 xxxx xxxx	Mobiles (future)
616	06	06 xxxx xxxx	Future use
617	07	07 xxxx xxxx	Queensland
618	08	08 xxxx xxxx	WA, SA, NT
619	09	09 xxxx xxxx	Future use
611300	1300	1300 xxx xxx	Inbound Service
613	13	13 xx xx	Inbound Service
611800	1800	1800 xxx xxx	Inbound Service

 

However it would be nice to have a toggle option that allows the system admin to choose if they want the spaces / hyphens included in the formatting.

For me, I like that Vodia does the localizing of the number from 61x to 0x, but I don't like the hypens, so I'd opt to have no hyphens and no spaces, but keep the localization of the format.

I tried removing the country code at the domain level, and this delivered the desired result in that the system no longer included hypehens or spaces, in the numbers, however it then also didn't do the localizing of the number in replacing the 61x with 0x and this meant the caller ID on the handsets displayed 61 as well which confuses users as most Australian users are not use to seeing a number starting with 61.

 

 

[Vodia PBX]

Thanks for that detailed overview. The reason why the PBX is using hyphens is because spaces are used in many forms in the web front end to separate list entries, including the forms for the DID numbers. In the USA, phone numbers are often written like (617) 399 8147 which is even "worse" than Australia! Other countries like Germany also prefer spaces, and they also include extra characters for the area code, e.g. (030) 55578992 or (030) 5557 8992 depending who you ask.

One way of solving the problem would be a different presentation in the user front end and the administrator web interface. OTOH there are only a few places where there are multiple phone numbers in a form field, and we could as well JavaScript that form element to present and accept the human readable format as well. Then we don't have to do any assumption on what characters may be used and format the number in the best human readable form. 

Another problem is that users actually really dial those strings as phone numbers, maybe because of copy and paste or maybe because they like to enter them that way. However we already have a PBX settings that defines what characters are removed from the dialed string. That setting should already be compatible with all human readable formats.

[GavinJ]

GregV's examples just touched on something that I have noticed for our inbound 1300 etc numbers. In Vodia we have had to enter these as 01300xxxxxx in order for Vodia to match the destination. 

As per Greg's example, we receive the number as 611300xxxxxx from our carrier. All other landline / local numbers work fine.

[Vodia PBX]

I noted something in the 13-Numbers. Starts with "611300" seems fine with me, however starts with "613" would conflict with Victoria. Is this just a typo? Should this be "6113"? Maybe the problems with 61300xxxxxx are related?

[GavinJ]

Fixed up my silly typo. 6113xx... Is how it comes in from our trunks. I'll see if I can post some screenshots for you when I get into the office.

[GregV]

On 4/16/2021 at 8:36 PM, Vodia PBX said:

Thanks for that detailed overview. The reason why the PBX is using hyphens is because spaces are used in many forms in the web front end to separate list entries, including the forms for the DID numbers. In the USA, phone numbers are often written like (617) 399 8147 which is even "worse" than Australia! Other countries like Germany also prefer spaces, and they also include extra characters for the area code, e.g. (030) 55578992 or (030) 5557 8992 depending who you ask.

One way of solving the problem would be a different presentation in the user front end and the administrator web interface. OTOH there are only a few places where there are multiple phone numbers in a form field, and we could as well JavaScript that form element to present and accept the human readable format as well. Then we don't have to do any assumption on what characters may be used and format the number in the best human readable form. 

Another problem is that users actually really dial those strings as phone numbers, maybe because of copy and paste or maybe because they like to enter them that way. However we already have a PBX settings that defines what characters are removed from the dialed string. That setting should already be compatible with all human readable formats.

The display of the numbers via the Vodia Web Interface does appear to be a final stage presentation, as even if the number is 0400-999-777 you can still search in the search criteria for 977 as an example and the call / recording will show. This is great and as expected. How Vodia does this presentation appears to be driven by the country code you enter, in my case, 61.

It also may allude to the fact that the storage of the numbers in Vodia's database is without localization, which is also good. Localization is an end step process as expected.

I do like how the Vodia PBX will replace the 61 with a 0 at the beginning of numbers IN and OUT as this is how Australians are use to seeing their numbers.
I just wish there was a way to request the Vodia system to not include the hyphen in the numbers.

Granted some people may like this, others may not. To me, having been in the industry for over 20 years, hyphens are not a standard display format in Australia. Spaces are more common, though as you stated could cause problems, so the next option is no spaces. Last option would be hyphenated.

Please accept this as a suggestion, its not a problem, just would be a nicety to have that flexibility in the display of numbers.

 

[Vodia PBX]

In the next version we will use spaces. This is what pretty much the whole world is using today to make phone numbers readable. Except for USA, the area code also seems to be without parenthesis (and actually it often shown even if you are in the area). We'll have this "marinate" in the 67.1 build for some time and then we will eventually make this version 68.

[GregV]

3 hours ago, Vodia PBX said:

In the next version we will use spaces. This is what pretty much the whole world is using today to make phone numbers readable. Except for USA, the area code also seems to be without parenthesis (and actually it often shown even if you are in the area). We'll have this "marinate" in the 67.1 build for some time and then we will eventually make this version 68.

Thank you. Even just an option to specify the delimiter or just leave out the spaces / hyphens would be ideal too.