[zylstra]

I've been trying to understand why the cell phone service providers (e.g. the top three At&T, Verizon, and Sprint/Nextel) don't offer call blocking, and I can't get a straight answer. So, accepting that cell phone service providers aren't going to offer this anytime soon, I began looking to my phone to block calls. I hear that some phones, such as the Motorola RAZR V3, do offer call blocking, but my Nokia N95 does not.

In learning about my phone I learned that I can install custom software on it, including call blocking software. It's operating system is called Symbian S60, and a great site to search for cell phone software is Mobile Software and Games for your PDA or Smartphone : Handango. I also did some searching on Google to find the following list of call blocking software:

Reviews (0-5 stars)

4 Webgate Advanced Call Manager $20 - This is almost the ultimate call manager. The only problem is that the software still leaves a record of rejected calls on your phone (or on your voicemail service) that must be manually deleted. This is actually not true in every case: if you continue to use your voicemail service for your accepted calls and "divert" all of the calls rejected by the software to another number, then those rejected calls leave no residue on your phone that must be deleted manually. Other than that the software is full-featured with a cool option to modify the call managing actions based upon where you are located as determined by cell towers.

4 Mobisophy Phone Pilot $20 - Full-featured call manager with stable, easy user interface. Leaves message from blocked call on phone. Features include conversation recording.

3 Killer Mobile BlackBaller $12.50 - Simple call and SMS blocking with intuitive interface. Leaves message from blocked call on voicemail service.

3 SymbianOn Private Call & SMS Guard $19 - Chinese company. Unintuitive interface, but not too bad. Includes call recording. Leaves message from blocked call on voicemail service.

3 Epocware Handy Blacklist $20 - Simple call blocking includes differentiation between unknown callers and private numbers. Leaves message from blocked call on voicemail service.

2 Smartphoneware Best Blacklist $10 - Unintuitive user interface. Leaves message from blocked call on voicemail service.

1 Mobisy Spam Manager $5 - Indian company. Not user friendly, very few features.

0 Anfy CallFilter Free - Buggy, slow, not understandable. Maybe because I was using the N95-3NAM version.

? Eltima Smart Call Manager Free? - Didn't install on to my Nokia N95.

[CaptainRich]

For free... I simply don't answer any calls who's number I don't recognize.
What you're listing doesn't stop or block the call, it seemingly only redirects most of them to voicemail.
For the money, what's the advantage?

[zylstra]

You're right with most of them in that there is not much of an advantage in redirecting them to voicemail. The small advantage is that the call from a blacklisted number does not ring.

With some of the software though, the blacklisted calls are captured on the phone, so if your phone signals that you have a voicemail then it is a legit voicemail.

However, I just learned some information from the amazing support of the top rated Webgate that indicates that software other than the two top rated softwares may offer call dropping for blacklisted calls. I'm not about to go back and retest all of them though. Here's a copy of the support email:

Dear ****,

Thank you for your reply.

Advanced Call Manager(ACM) uses the “Divert if Busy” function of the device. In normal circumstances the application activates the divert if “Divert to” reject action is selected. However, when ACM is started it reads the Divert if Busy settings on the device and if they are “On”
(which seems to be your case) ACM divert calls when the “send busy”
Action is selected.

In your case, most probably your Mobile Operator has set the option “Divert if busy” as a requirement and this features is always “On” on your device.

To check this you can do the following:

1. Go to Tools ? Settings - > Call Divert 2. Disable “divert if busy” 3.
Check status for “divert if busy”

If it is still enabled, please contact your Mobile operator.

If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact us anytime.

Best regards,
WebGate Support


-----Original Message-----
From: ****************************
Sent: Fri Feb 08 01:18:34 2008


Thank you very much. I did download your application and spent several hours testing it today. However, when I select "Send busy tone" as the default action, the caller is dumped into my voicemail that is provided by my network service. Also, I can actually use the "Divert call too..." setting to disallow the caller from leaving a message by diverting the call back to the caller. But in that case I cannot set the software to use the answering machine, which is provided with the software to record messages on the phone, to answer any other calls.

Just something to think about for future releases... Another idea for a future release is to have "Divert call too..." as an option for the action associated with an individual number in a list.

I think you have created a great product and I may purchase the software anyway.

Thanks,
****


-----Original Message-----
From: **************************** On Behalf Of support via RT
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 1:01 AM
To: ****************************
Subject: [webgate #40907] Call Block feature

Dear ****,

Thank you for contacting us.

The "Answering Machine" functionality is only one of the reject actions you could use for filtering your incoming calls. However, if you select it as your "Default Action" and "Reject from black list"(you have to define the list in advance) as an "Active Mode", all your incoming calls from people listed in your black list will be answered with the "Answering Machine" functionality, i.e. they will be able to leave you a voice message.

If you would like this "blacklisted caller" to be simply rejected, without knowing that and without being able to leave you any message, you could select "Send busy tone / drop" as a reject-call action and "Reject from black list" as an "Active Mode".

More information on how to use our application is available in our detailed User Manual: User Manual - Advanced Call Manager

You can try and download the trial version of the application from here:
Download - Advanced Call Manager

I hope I have been helpful to you.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us anytime.

Best regards,
WebGate Support


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ****************************
> Sent: Thu Feb 07 22:22:18 2008
>
> Does your advanced call manager allow the user to block a blacklisted
Caller
> from leaving a voice message?
>
> Thanks,
>
> ****