Nuisance calls: BT's Shropshire base is key to crackdown

The company said it was "declaring war" on companies that regularly pester customers with calls on subjects like PPI and personal accident claims.

It will divert up to 30 million nuisance calls a week to a junk voicemail box.

The company's network management centre in Oswestry uses large quantities of data, and will combine network intelligence with customers' ability to control the calls they receive.

Data analysed by the team at Oswestry is used to identify rogue numbers – typically those which make huge numbers of calls – which are then added to a BT blacklist and diverted into junk.

BT revealed last year that it was working on the project, and has now gone live for the first time.

Colin Bannon, chairman of BT's West Midlands regional board, said: "We know that nuisance calls are a big problem for people in our region, who receive many millions of such calls every year.

"Some of these calls can be upsetting and unnerving as well as very annoying, particularly for people who are more vulnerable perhaps through age or disability."

BT employs more than 900 people in Shropshire, and Oswestry is one of its main sites.

Part of the role of one of the teams based at Oswestry is to monitor UK and international voice traffic for BT, ensuring that phone calls get through to where they need to, 24 hours a day, in Shropshire and around the world.

Mr Bannon added: "BT's network management team in Oswestry has a proven track record in providing technical expertise.

"Their knowledge of the network is key to the success of the solution and this important new service. Today's launch is the culmination of months of work by the specialist team."

Pester

John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, added: "We're declaring war on the companies that regularly pester our customers with nuisance calls on subjects such as PPI and personal accident claims. We're giving our customers the means to fight back against the millions of unwanted calls for free.

"We've been at the forefront of equipping our customers to defend themselves against the huge numbers of PPI and unwanted marketing calls that are continuing to grow.

"Now, with our unique technology, we can identify and tackle huge numbers of those calls in the network and also give our customers control over the calls they receive."

As the company prepares to launch the service, it has published figures showing that 12.2 million nuisance calls relating to accidents were made in one week in December.

Almost three million PPI calls were made that week, 2.6 million computer scans, 1.4 million scam requests for personal data, and 987,000 silent calls.

TV presenter Christine Lampard has been signed up to promote BT Call Protect. She said: "My own parents have noticed a huge rise in these sorts of calls, an increase that seems to be affecting a majority of the older generation."