UK ISP TalkTalk Reports Rapid Uptake of FREE Privacy Calling Features
Budget broadband and calls provider TalkTalk reports that its recent move to become “the first and only ISP” to make all of their fixed phone line privacy calling features (e.g. Last Caller Barring and Anonymous Caller Reject) completely free has boosted the number of customers using the service almost four-fold.
The change meant that TalkTalk’s customers could now use features including Last Caller Barring, Anonymous Caller Reject, Caller Display, 1571 Voicemail and Withhold Your Number, all without needing to pay extra. Some other ISPs typically charge additional fees worth several pounds per month (£1 – £4.50) per service but TalkTalk probably sees more value in this as a customer retention tool.
As a result the ISP states that “a large number of TalkTalk homes” have taken advantage of their free service, although the provider didn’t confirm an actual figure. According to TalkTalk, the strong uptake demonstrates that “people don’t believe they should have to pay to protect their privacy“, which is true but then anything useful offered for free is perhaps likely to be deemed equally attractive.
But nuisance calls are a very real problem and it’s refreshing to see this approach being taken. At the same time consumers need to be cautious about hiding their number from everybody, after all using the ‘Withhold Number’ service might trigger ‘Anonymous Caller Reject’ at your friend’s house. Spammers do often withhold their number but so can real people and as more use the service then an increasing number of legitimate calls risk being blocked.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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If only we could get TalkTalk to stop phoning us!
We signed up for fibre broadbanda few weeks back, service is beyonde useless yet TalkTalk like calling us and trying to sell us mobile phone services!
TalkTalk told us we would get 38Mbps second – most of the time we get less than 10, services is also up and down like a YoYo. Customer service (LOL)
Hate TalkTalk
I’m glad to see an operator finally making anonymous call rejection free – now I just need to find a way to block ‘number unavailable’ spam calls, as well as the ‘withheld’ ones!
My hope is that anonymous call rejection will become ubiquitous enough that withholding your number becomes pointless for most people; having paid for ACR in the past, enough legitimate businesses currently make anonymous calls for it to be irritating. “Number unavailable”, however, has never been anything other than a spammer: exactly the kind of call I want blocked.
I never expected to say this about their retail offerings, but – Good Job TalkTalk!
“Talk Talk in ‘people like free stuff’ shocker”
🙂