ScamBlocker Launch Own UK Digital Landline Home Phone Service

Communications platform provider SONIQ Labs has launched a new “AI-powered digital landline service” called ScamBlocker Home, which connects via your existing broadband router and promises to protect UK households from telephone fraud by screening unknown callers before the phone rings.

The service is said to be a direct-to-consumer product, which has been built on the company’s “enterprise-grade communications infrastructure” and seems to combine their VoIP (Voice-over-Internet-Protocol) service with a Fanvil GA11 Analogue Terminal Adapter (ATA) for plugging into your existing broadband router.

According to the announcement, the systems uses pre-call screening (i.e. AI answers and asks the caller to identify themselves, while checking for scam patterns like impersonators for HMRC, bank and utility firms etc.). Calls deemed suspicious are then blocked, while legitimate callers are put through. The system also builds contextual profiles of legitimate callers over time, making it more effective at verifying legitimate calls.

On top of that there’s the usual ability to whitelist friends, family and other contacts, which can also harness AI to automatically identify known individuals via behaviour patterns, regardless of where they might be calling from. Finally, the system can be set to prevent any payment processing over the phone without approval from an appointed contact, which could be handy if you’re worried about a vulnerable relative being manipulated.

Philippa Highfield, Director at We Are One 1 Limited (SONIQ Labs’ parent), said:

“When elderly parents lose thousands to phone scammers, they often don’t tell family until it’s too late. Traditional call blockers react after damage is done. We prevent the call from ever connecting.”

However, it’s worth remembering that several VoIP providers and broadband ISPs now leverage AI to block and proactively filter scam calls, such as Virgin Media / O2 and EE (BT). A number of Apps and other services, such as Truecaller and Apate.ai, also claim to have at least some similar features to ScamBlocker, although they don’t offer it as a digital landline product for the UK.

The service itself costs £14.99 per month for the first 6 months (£24.99 thereafter) on a 12-month term, so it’s not exactly cheap. But for that you do get the GA11 ATA adapter (used with your existing handset), can keep your existing home phone number, and it also includes 2,000 minutes to UK landlines & mobiles (monthly). This includes all 5 AI protection layers, the payment blocker feature and family dashboard & alerts.

The product is also advertised as being able to port your existing phone for “free“, but we’d take that with a pinch of salt because they do charge a general £29 one-time setup for the whole service. In addition, there’s also a ScamBlocker Mobile service for £9.99 per month on a monthly term (no setup fee), which claims to bring similar benefits to mobile users and harnesses eSIM technology to work alongside your existing operator.