TORONTO – Primus was quick to tout its free telephone spam filtering service, just days after the CRTC told telcos that they must help Canadian customers to stave off unwanted telemarketing calls.
Primus said Friday that Telemarketing Guard, which is included with its home phone service, works at the network level to identify and intercept suspected telemarketing calls before the phone rings. In the default mode, the intercepted caller will have to Press '1' – similar to a 'captcha' – before the call can proceed, which it claims results in many telemarketers and robocalls just hanging up.
Customers may also select from additional options such as requiring an intercepted caller to record their name before the call is connected. If they do, the phone will ring and customers will hear the caller's recorded name, allowing them the option to answer the call, send the call to voicemail, or reject the call.
Primus added that it was the only telecommunications service provider to have successfully developed and deployed a patented call-filtering technology to control mass telephone calls on its own network, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved anti-telemarketing technologies for use in the United States in 2015.
“While spam filtering is a standard feature for any e-mail service, millions of Canadians are left completely exposed to unwanted robocalls and telemarketing scams," said Primus GM Brad Fisher, in the news release. "The CRTC's decision confirms that intelligent call-filtering solutions like Telemarketing Guard give consumers more control over who they communicate with, and that this technology can be successfully deployed on Canadian networks."
