call routing - 800 numbers

[TheHardy]

Picked up a small glitch today when making some calls via the SoftPhone.

I was making a series of calls to various 800-ish numbers (the 5-1-1 equivalent numbers) to check on highway conditions in various jurisdictions; I was doing some route planning in case anyone really needs to know.

I encountered two separate and distinct problems:

a) recorded failure message - ALL CIRCUITS BUSY Usually along the lines of "We're sorry, all circuits are busy, please try your call again later." This persisted for well over 30 minutes, and was again present over an hour after that when I tried again.

b) recorded failure message - NUMBER NOT AVAILABLE "That number is not available within your calling area". I know that there are geographical/regional restrictions placed on some 800 numbers (why anyone would do that for 5-1-1 type services, I do not know!). My question here is, where do FPL-softphone-originated calls "appear" to be placed from? Is it always the same (ie: Fibernetics HQ) or is it dependent on either the "city" where the FPL number is based, or on the geographic-local of where the actual internet connection takes place from? I know that is a bit technical, but any information on this would be appreciated.

Note: There are some work-around solutions that I have found (other than trying to acquire a non-WATS/800 number for the service). One such that is particularly usefu for US-based 800 numbers is to use a "V-access Number" from Vonage (sorry to mention the competition). For those of you that are not familiar with these, they are local numbers in various cities where "that" company offers service that allow non-"company" customers to place calls to "company" VOIP customers even if they are not within their local calling area. Another feature of this, is that you can successfully call out to ALMOST all US-based 800 numbers as well! I know this is not the intended purpose of the V-access numbers, but it does work, and as far as I can tell, is not incurring an additional cost to anyone.

Feel free to contact me (or PM) if you need additional information on these, as I will be happy to give it.