Yeah. I turned it on one year during an election cycle. Even if the "do not call" list works, the politicians exempt themselves from that so you always get tons of calls that you'll never be able to block.
When someone calls my home number, the PBX system immediately answers the call without actually ringing any of the home phones. It's an IVR that's says something like "We would love to speak with you, but are blocking spam calls. Please press 1 to be connected to The automation guys household". If the caller presses any button, the system will forward the call to a set of actual phone extensions so that phones in the house ring and someone can answer the phone. The benefit comes in the fact that an autodialer never connects to a real person in time for them to hear the announcement. They don't know to press a number and the system automatically hangs up on them without ringing any extension after about 10 seconds when there isn't a button press.
It has stopped 100% of the unsolicited/undesired calls to our house. I am still shocked at how effective it is.
Honestly we don't use the home phone to make/answer calls...... ever. But for the cost of service (about $3.50/mo) I feel like it is worth the benefit in case there is an emergency at home. Someone just needs to pick up a phone and dial 911. No looking for cells phones, etc. But more importantly, we use the intercom feature of the phone system all the time, so I'm not getting rid of the phone system anytime soon, even if we don't use it to call people on it.
There are plenty of free PBX software options out there and with a digital to analog conversion box (I use an Obi202, but I understand they are no longer being sold), a person could use their existing analog phones and change to a digital phone system for a couple hundred dollars. By moving to a VOIP service provider and dropping the standard phone service, you would make up this upfront cost in just a couple of months. I pay about $3.50/mo all-in for service (including e911 service).
I could easily add something like that to my system, but I never really cared to go back and listen to any of them so I've never bothered. If a caller didn't press a number correctly, instead of the system dropping the call, it could forward the call to a special extension that plays "Lenny" - a recording of an guy that sounds really old with hearing loss. You can set the system up to record the calls too (but it's not required).
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