[Michael8830]

I've searched the forums for a solution, but the answers I find don't seem to address my problem entirely. My phone is a Blackberry 8830 World Edition. I bought it second hand, and it seems to be configured for the US/Canada. I say this because it gives me the option to use "1" for national dialing. I can say yes or no, but I cannot change the default from 1.

The problem is (and many others on these forums seem to have the same problem) whenever I receive a call from a number in my address book, the name appears. But when I get an SMS from that same number, only the number appears. I can play with the number format and get it to work in reverse, but I just can't get the name to appear on calls and sms at the same time.

This seems to be a common question on the forums, and the answers always refer to 3 possible solutions: make sure the country and city codes are correctly entered, make sure the national number length is set correctly, and turn off content protection.

I have played with all of those, but they don't seem to solve the problem. So, here are the facts as they apply to me. I hope someone has a detailed solution:

I live in the Philippines. Most of my calls and sms messages also come from the Philippines, but some are from other countries. Country code is 63. City code for my most commonly called landline numbers is 2. Other cities have 2 digit city codes, which means that the national number length is different, depending on which city you are calling.

In this country, we dial 0 for long distance within the country, and 00 to call another country. I think that is one of the more common setups around the world. Cell phones have a 3 digit area code. Different 3 digit area codes for different cellular providers. This means that to call a landline (from my blackberry) even within my own city, I dial 02-xxx-xxxx. To dial another cellphone I dial 0xxx-xxx-xxxx. Technically that means that cell phone calls, to either a landline or to a phone using another cellular provider, are always long distance.

On the blackberry I have smart dialing enabled. I notice that when I select the country code, the blackberry automatically sets the national number length to 8. This seems correct if national number length means the 7 digit landline number plus the 0 for national dialing.

Question number 1: Since the blackberry was able to automatically set the national number length after I chose the country code, does that mean that it also knows the Philippines uses 0 and 00 for national and international dialing? Or did it just set the length to 8 as a default?

I normally create a new contact in Microsoft Outlook. Using the features in Outlook, I set the country and city code for each telephone number. Then I sync with my blackberry to transfer the contact.

I am convinced that the answer lies, not in the smart dialing settings, but in the format of the phone number. I have received both calls and SMS messages from a number in Germany, and the call log shows the name in both cases. But calls and sms messages from the US only give the name or the number. Calls and sms messages to and from cell phones here in the Philippines are also mixed.

One more strange thing: I just made a couple of test calls to my own office landline, which is listed in my address book. I called the blackberry from the landline, and only the number appeared on my blackberry. But when I called the landline from the blackberry, the blackberry call log shows the contact name.

Statement/Question number 2: This is all very frustrating, especially for a phone which has the words "World Edition" emblazoned on the front. Does anyone know the specific settings and number format I should use to make the caller ID feature work as it should in this country? You would think Research in Motion would have posted these settings for each country, somewhere on their website, but I can't find them.

By the way, I do not yet have a data plan. I am using the blackberry as a simple cellphone/PIM, with a local cellular SIM card. It is possible that that is part of the problem, but I doubt it. The device has also apparently been used with an Enterprise Server in the past. I removed the IT policy, but there may be something still in effect.

Please help.

[Klotar]

A quick 'n dirty (I have to rush off to work in a few minutes)...

Set two numbers for your contacts (use the 'fax' field, for example; for the second one). In the first field, have it set the way you dial or sms, in the second field, have it set the way it's displayed when received.

Use the first one when sending sms or dialing out, and the second one will be used by the BB when an incoming call or sms is received to identify the contact.

Notes: replying might be a problem, because it will try to send it to the second contact, but see if that causes an error/issue with you. In some countries it does, others it doesn't. Secondly, often work phones aren't a good test of caller id / call display. Many work phones these days are IP phones and do not display caller id information (they should however, match up with numbers stored in your address book to display the contact name). By caller id, I mean true, carrier service provided name display.

Good luck.

[ricpac]

hello fellow, i have an 8320, same location, same carrier and here's how i set mine and this has worked for me eversince on both phone and SMS:

country code: +63
area code: (blank)
nat'l nbr length: 10

for my mobile phone contacts i have them in this format 9#########
for PH landlines except MNL (trust me, i don't know why MNL only has 1 nbr for its area code): say CEB (032), i have them in this format (the full nbr) 0328588792, same goes for CDO, DVO and the rest
for my int'l contacts: say US, their full nbr like +19174427890

[a.petrov]

Originally Posted by ricpac

hello fellow, i have an 8320, same location, same carrier and here's how i set mine and this has worked for me eversince on both phone and SMS:

country code: +63
area code: (blank)
nat'l nbr length: 10

for my mobile phone contacts i have them in this format 9#########
for PH landlines except MNL (trust me, i don't know why MNL only has 1 nbr for its area code): say CEB (032), i have them in this format (the full nbr) 0328588792, same goes for CDO, DVO and the rest
for my int'l contacts: say US, their full nbr like +19174427890

this is maybe a good solution, but when i looked to my watch it says 21st century already.

any past century phone can translate a national number into international format and vice-versa for purpose of caller id interpretation.

i refuse to believe that BB cannot do this.

we have to continue to work on a solution to this issue as this is really annoing already.

[a.petrov]

Originally Posted by Klotar

A quick 'n dirty (I have to rush off to work in a few minutes)...

Set two numbers for your contacts (use the 'fax' field, for example; for the second one). In the first field, have it set the way you dial or sms, in the second field, have it set the way it's displayed when received.

Use the first one when sending sms or dialing out, and the second one will be used by the BB when an incoming call or sms is received to identify the contact.

Notes: replying might be a problem, because it will try to send it to the second contact, but see if that causes an error/issue with you. In some countries it does, others it doesn't. Secondly, often work phones aren't a good test of caller id / call display. Many work phones these days are IP phones and do not display caller id information (they should however, match up with numbers stored in your address book to display the contact name). By caller id, I mean true, carrier service provided name display.

Good luck.

i think it is easier to buy another phone