Android BT Home Smartphone S Promises To Block Nuisance Calls

BT is now offering an Android-powered cordless phone with smartphone features. the Home SmartPhone S promises all the features of a mobile device on a  landline – and can block 80 percent of all nuisance calls.

The 3.5-inch device runs Android 4.2, and allows users to block calls from international numbers, withheld numbers and unknown callers, while up to ten specific telephone numbers can be blocked. It connects over DECT to the landline, and Wi-Fi to the Internet.

In addition, outgoing calls to premium rate lines cane be disabled, while the handset offers a ‘do not disturb’ option that silences the ringer.

BT Home Smartphone S

The Home SmartPhone S has a range of 300 metres on DECT, and can store 1,500 contacts, offering high quality calls along with smartphone features such as pre-installed applications for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TuneIn Radio, with more software available from the Opera store.

BT says the expandable 2GB of storage allows users to listen to music, and the camera lets them take photos around the home – not an obviously useful feature on a landline, but at least users can take pictures round the house to upload onto Twitter and Facebook.

“The new BT Home SmartPhone S allows customers to enjoy the features they would expect from a smartphone combined with the great features of a BT home phone, including nuisance call blocking to put them back in control of who they want to speak to,” says Erik Raphael, Director of Wi-Fi and devices at BT. “The Home SmartPhone S makes the home phone central to family life again, allowing you to look up numbers online and communicate with friends and family via email, Facebook or calls.”

BT released its first nuisance call-blocking phone, the BT6500, last year and claims its release resulted in the number of complaints to its Nuisance Call Advice Line falling by a half. Research shows consumers received on average two nuisance calls per week and half of these are from Payment Protection Insurance companies.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom says it plans to do more to protect consumers from nuisance calls and in April 2013 fined BT’s rival TalkTalk £750,000 for excessive numbers of unsolicited calls to prospective calls in 2011.

Deja vu?

Some readers may remember this isn’t the first time BT has merged mobile and cordless phones. BT Fusion, launched in 2005 was more or less the opposite of SmartPhone S, being a non-smart feature phone that could be used outside the house  on the Vodafone network, and switch to a Bluetooth (later, Wi-Fi) connection indoors. Fusion failed utterly, and was cancelled in 2009.

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