Thank you, that is possibly a good idea.

 

Up to now I have resisted giving up my copper line:

 

1.  to have multiple accesses that should not all be down at the same time

2.  Because Comcast was much less reliable than the phone company

3.  "prove you are not a computer" kind of offends me philosophically

 

by having the maximum rings before picking up, and a very long outgoing message, I haven't had to answer a robocall in months or years.  My phone does announce who is calling, so for my friends, if I am actually home, I pick up immediately.  Just recently, if it is any kind of anonymous and there is a possibility I want the call (e.g., I have a doctor's appointment the next day, so it may be a reminder), I may pick up and then hang up if it is a robocall.

 

Maybe it is time to give up the copper line.  Recently cable has been down less than the phone company, and I do have my mobile phone as backup.  And it is expensive.

 

Perhaps I should try adding a VOIP service, and unless get too irritated by it, then switch my historical phone number to it (34 years).

Carey

On 08/29/2025 6:46 AM CDT Alvin Starr via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:

 

 

On 2025-08-29 05:38, CAREY SCHUG via Talk wrote:

When I do a web search, I find devices "preloaded with xxx thousand numbers" or room for me to add xxx thousand numbers, but IME, spam/robo calls never come from the same number twice, so that is a waste of me pressing the "block call" feature.

 

I want an answering machine including multiple cordless phones, and maybe that will connect to bluetooth to handle mobile calls too, that will:

 

About 4 years ago I moved and at the same time moved my land line to a VOIP provider(voip.ms).

On that line I have installed an IVR that asks the caller to press 1 to be connected.

This has cut down the number of robocalls to 0.

It also provides the usual features like messages but can also forward the messages as email.

The one thing I have now that I did not before is SMS on my home number which is also forwarded via email.

This will not solve your handset problem but you could get a cheap multi-handset answering-machine phone system and just disable the answering part.