Unknown & Witheld

Doorman80

Doorman80

Doorman80

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Joined
27 Feb 2003
Posts
190
Location
North East
Can somebody tell me what the difference is betwen "Witheld" and "Unknown" Does it just depend on with network you belong to or is it something else?

Thanks
Paul
 
The difference is whether the number is present or not.

If there is no identifiable number, it shows as unknown.

If there is an identifiable number associated with the call, but the instruction has been given to not present it to the recipient it will show as "witheld"

It's worth noting that witholding your number only stops the number being given to the recipent of the call, it's still fully trackable if necessary.
 
thanks for that information :)

so if I dont have a person in my contact list and they ring me witholding their number it will come up unknown, but if they are in my contact list it will come up witheld. Is that right?
 
No, it's down to what information is presented to the network and by the network, not what's stored in your phone.

The call comes from the other phone, and can have Caller line ID present or not. (Pretty much all UK phones have CLI). They also have a flag that says whether or not the caller line ID should be given to the recipent of the call or not.

If the call has no CLI at all (for example, a call from many places overseas) then you get unknown, if the call has CLI but the withold flag is set to Y, then the number shows as witheld.
 
Right I understand that. The reason I'm asking is I've been getting afew unknown calls on my mobile were the person either doesnt speak or they start mouthing of at me saying ive just phoned them etc. So if someone is doing this from their mobile surely it would come up witheld and not unknown, unless of course you can turn off CLI on your mobile which i cant seem to see an option for on my D750i.

I'm not stupid it just I dont really know how phones work etc. :)
 
Doorman80 said:
Oh it seems you can turn it off on your phone.
Click to expand...
It will still say "Withheld" instead of "Unknown", though.

You basically can't force the other person's phone to show "Unknown" if you are calling from pretty much any fixed single line or mobile phone in the UK. Some large call centres or organisations manage to call out with "Unknown" (probably because of the complex PBX system) but in my experience, all single line telephones will dutifully notify the CLI to the other party - using the "Withold" option on your phone merely sets the flag for "Do not show number when the call reaches the other person" just as using some prefix before dialling the number.
 
Any call from abroad will be marked as "unknown". Most calls via VOIP system outside UK will come up as "unknown". Even calls from very common call-through numbers to some parts of UK mobile networks come up as "unknown" - perfect example - every time I call my cousin on T-Mobile via 18866 it shows "unknown" to him, same call to my gf's T-mobile phone pass my home number no problems.
 
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