Gridlock News

We all have experienced telemarketers calling at all times of the day and night.  We signed up for the do not call Registry and for a few short months we had relief.  But then the telemarketers got wise and the calls started coming again.

They're using a technology that many businesses are using today to save money on their phone bills.  Its voice over IP(VOIP).

For businesses and consumers that means that you got to pay for long-distance and you don't have to worry about minutes.  For telemarketers, it means that you can make phone calls and nobody knows where you're calling from.

That means for telemarketers when they call you, you don't have to worry about you screening out their calls with caller recognition or caller ID.

Plus it enables them to plug their systems into computers which can dial your number automatically and as soon as you actually pick up the phone it in connection to other operators will start talking to as if they dialed the phone themselves.

Now, I'm not encouraging this tool or these phone systems for telemarketers, but it can save consumers a good deal of money.  Just like many technologies this one has its good and its bad.

There are many brands that produce this technology from Motorola(my former company) to Skype to Vonage and then many other manufactures such as Talkswitch, Bizphon, Panasonic and many many others.

You can use this same technology to fight the telemarketers.  You can setup a VOIP system in your home or business and use the system to screen your calls just like your email program screens out spam.  In fact you can have your voice mail sent to email and listen to your voice mail like files.

Congress tried to block telemarketers, but ultimately the market was too nimble.  Maybe our next best bet is using technology to block phone spam.