Made in Europe

Knowledge document #17

Caller ID is not shown for incoming calls

Caller ID is not shown on the display of your FRITZ!Fon when you receive a call:

  • The FRITZ!Fon does not show the caller ID.
  • The FRITZ!Fon briefly shows the number of the caller, and then only the bell icon is shown in the display and the number disappears.
  • The FRITZ!Fon does not show the number a caller has called.

1 Activating text information in the FRITZ!Box

  1. Enter #960*2* on your phone and press the call key (pick up the handset).
  2. Hang up again after about 3 seconds.

    Note:To deactivate text information display again, enter #960*0*.

2 Defining display names in the FRITZ!Box

The following step is only necessary if the phone shows caller ID, but not the number that the caller called:

  1. Click on 'Telephony' in the FRITZ!Box user interface.
  2. Click on 'Phone Numbers' in the 'Telephony' menu.
  3. Click the (Edit) button for the respective phone number.
  4. Enter a name of your choice in the 'Display name' field.

    Example:
    You can enter 'VOIP_12345', 'provider_12345', 'office', 'private' or '12345' as the display name for the internet phone number 12345.

  5. Click on 'Apply' to save the settings.

3 Checking the FRITZ!Box's call list

  1. Click on 'Telephony' in the FRITZ!Box user interface.
  2. Click on 'Calls' in the 'Telephony' menu.
  3. Check which incoming calls (blue or red handset) caller ID is not shown for.
  4. If caller ID is not shown for calls to an ISDN or internet number, either your telephony provider did not enable CLIP for your line, or the callers do not transmit their caller ID.
    • If caller ID is not shown for calls to an analogue landline number, continue with the next section.

4 Checking the analogue phone line and devices

The following step is only necessary if the caller ID is not shown when your analogue landline number is called:

Checking CLIP support

  1. Disconnect the FRITZ!Box from the DSL splitter's phone socket.
  2. Connect an analogue phone to the DSL splitter's phone socket.
  3. If the phone does not show caller ID now, either your telephony provider did not enable CLIP for your line yet, your phone does not support CLIP, or the caller did not transmit his caller ID.

Connecting all phones and telephony devices to the FRITZ!Box

  1. Connect all telephony devices (for example phones, faxes) to the FRITZ!Box.

    Important:Connecting additional telephony devices or sockets to the phone jack can cause errors.

Excluding another device as source of interference

Either a device connected to the FRITZ!Box or the power mains may be transmitting interference to the FRITZ!Box. Perform the following test to see if this is the case:

  1. Remove all devices and cables from the LAN ports and the USB port on the FRITZ!Box. If no devices were connected, connect a computer to a LAN port on the FRITZ!Box.
  2. If the error no longer occurs, then a device connected to the FRITZ!Box was transmitting interference to the FRITZ!Box or the computer now channels it off. Usually, you can eliminate the cause of the interference through one of these measures:
    1. Use a power strip to connect the FRITZ!Box and all of the connected devices to the same electrical socket.
    2. Test different electrical sockets and power strips.
    3. Use UTP network cables to connect devices to the LAN ports on the FRITZ!Box. UTP network cables do not have a ground wire and do not transmit interference to the FRITZ!Box, unlike STP network cables such as the one included with delivery.

      Important:If the problem occurs with a FRITZ!Powerline device, use the UTP network cable included with the FRITZ!Powerline device.

    4. If a device connected to the USB port is transmitting interference to the FRITZ!Box, connect the device to a USB port on your computer instead of to the FRITZ!Box.

Signal quality is too low

If your FRITZ!Box still does not show caller ID for incoming calls, the signal quality of your analogue landline is too low.

Compared to simple phones, phone systems always place higher demands on the signal quality of analogue phone lines. The FRITZ!Box is capable of recognizing and processing all incoming signals correctly well beyond the specification limits. However, when used on lines subject to much interference, the FRITZ!Box's tolerance to errors is slightly lower than that of an analogue phone connected directly to your line. Therefore, under some circumstances, a phone that is connected directly to your line can evaluate the CLIP information even though the FRITZ!Box cannot. This is not due to an error with the FRITZ!Box; instead, it is because the signal quality of the analogue landline is too low.