A Gigaset With A Blacklist & The FTC’s Robocall Challenge

Earlier this week I saw a press release detailing a new model of Gigaset cordless DECT phone. This new model, known as the Gigaset C620A, isn’t even SIP capable so normally I wouldn’t give it the time of day. However, the release placed unusual emphasis on one particular feature…a blacklist function intended to reduce the impact of nuisance calls.

Nuisance calls have been on my mind lately, not so much because we get them…because we generally don’t suffer such a problem. They’ve been on my mind because ZipDX’s David Frankel has been railing against the outcome of the FTC/FCC sponsored Robocall Challenge intended to crowd source a solution to the problem of such calls.

David entered that contest but was not one of the winners. He made some inquires about the judging criteria and scores, but met with resistance. In fact, David’s experience following up on the scoring was pretty bad. So much so that he’s been pursuing the FTC and FCC for more details. His efforts in this pursuit made it into The Wall Street Journal on June 25th.

While the contest was over some time ago, there was a Senate hearing on the subject just last week.

Back to this new Gigaset C620A, which is currently only offered in Europe. It has the usual large contact list, what makes it different is that it has a blacklist where 15 numbers can be stored. Presuming that you get consistent presentation of a calling party number you can thus keep 15 people or companies from making your phone ring.

This capability isn’t really anything new, but it’s not typically implemented in a consumer telephone. Where I’ve seen such capability offered it was in a PBX or as a service from the telco. While a few people find it fun and amusing to maintain a local PBX, I’ve long abandoned such pursuits myself. Thus I suspect that blacklist function might be well received in some circles.

Parsing a little of the language on Gigaset’s web site I suspect that the feature is actually implemented in the handset. If so that potentially opens it to use with a SIP-capable DECT base.

As I’ve mentioned here many times, the European frequency allocation for DECT differs from North American standards. You cannot use European DECT models in the US or Canada without running afoul of the law. That’s OK. Here in the US we’re going to have a real swell solution to the problem of robocalls. The FTC says so.