Ofcom Speaks Up Over Silent Calls

In a clamp-down on nuisance calls, the Office of Communications ("Ofcom") issued a new answer machine detection ("AMD") rule, designed to tackle silent and abandoned calls. The rule, which comes into effect on 1 February 2011, will see non-compliant companies faced with named investigations and fines of up to £2 million.

Silent calls - where someone answering a call is met only with silence on the other end - can be a source of great annoyance for many telephone users, especially when repeated silent calls are received from the same company. In addition, such calls can cause considerable distress, particularly to vulnerable individuals.

However, despite these unpleasant effects, the vast majority of silent calls are generated with no malicious intent. Rather, most silent calls result from the use by call centres of technologies, such as AMD.