It's not very often we get calls on our landlines these days, but when we do, it's usually along the lines of: "You may have been mis-sold Payment Protection Insura...." at which point the phone goes down again.
After 50,000 complaints BT has finally recognised that there's nothing worse than a nuisance call while you're enjoying a bit of dinner and The Chase, and has launched a new phone to handle the problem.
The BT6500 landline phone is available to buy from today and promises to eliminate 4 out of every 5 of those infuriating, unwanted, Bradley Walsh-interrupting calls.
It costs £44.99 from BT, Argos or Amazon (you can get four for £109) and can be directly configured to block calls from international and withheld numbers, as well as from 10 user-specified numbers.
Parental controls
Blocked calls will be diverted to an answer phone so important callers, who may have their number withheld for genuine reasons, can leave messages.
The handset also features a do-not-disturb mode as well as parental controls to allow outgoing calls to mobiles, premium rate lines and international numbers to be easily blocked.
Up until now, families had relied on the free-to-join Telephone Protection Service in order to cut out unsolicited sales calls, but the TPS cannot block withheld numbers or those initiated from outside the UK.
John Petter, managing director of BT's consumer division, said: "We know from talking to our customers that nuisance calls cause huge frustration and even anxiety at times. When people feel as though they are being harassed in their own homes they need to be able to take action and block the offending callers."
