Since the caller ID comes between the first and second rings, the phone would need to intercept the first ring, receive and decode the caller ID, and either pass or block succeeding rings.
I haven't (yet) seen a phone that does this, although there was a system (CyberGenie) that supported this and other functions - but it needed a PC to handle the processing.
See review from Aug 2000:
John
It seems an obvious thing, but I'm unsuccessful in finding one.
>Has anyone seen a conventional wired telephone
>with a programmable reject list?
>
>The result should be either the phone doesn't ring at all, or it does a
>quick pick-up and hang-up (best) if the caller's number matches the
>reject list.
>
>Any make/model/source suggestions appreciated.
>
> Ross.
There is discussion of this topic in this thread:
Sure - Initially I thought you'd just suppress the first ring, but on further reflection, hearing the single ring before the CLID comes through would be a nice reassurance that your phone is actually dropping the annoying repeat callers.
Thx for the link. Hopefully someone in Taiwan is listening and can whip this feature up in an afternoon - it's purely software in any simple phone that has, say a built in dig ans machine.
If Mac's had a RJ-11 phone port anymore, I'd consider whipping up the code to do it on there.
R.
Thx for the link back. Didn't see that discussion. I guess the difference I'd like is rather than trying for a punitive response (forwarding calls, playing messages etc) just make my phone number unresponsive for the spammers. The blacklist just causes the phone to disconnect.
I'm doing this manually now - if I see a caller ID that is an 800-number I just pick up and hang-up right away. Similarly if I see "Local Weedman" - my current nemesis.
Would be nice to just hear that single ring, knowning that I didn't have to do anything.
R.
I guess this phone will be a hit if theres one.
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