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ekhawaii's avatar
ekhawaii
Contributor
6 years ago

My observations to Voice Mail and Call Blocking.

I've been a minor participant to the "in the last 25 hours" thread, reading all the great comments by CurtB and Bruce.  I made some mention about voice mail and call blocking.  I wanted to update my findings.

I have a newer Panasonic Phone hardware with an answering machine +250 call blocking button on the handset.  The phone is set to answer at 4 rings.  My COX phone system Voice Tools Settings has Call Waiting and Voice Mail (set at 5 rings) activated.  My test was to call my home phone from a cell phone.  Then I called my home phone from another cell and saw Me on "Call waiting" on the home phone.  On my second cell, I DID NOT get a busy signal (probably because of the Call Waiting ON), but after 5-6 rings, an automated voice message comes on and tells me the phone is busy and leave a message...which I did.

I then went to my COX/Voice Tools and saw the Voice History and the Voice Mail message playback.  So, if someone calls you and your phone is busy, all they would hear is a ringing tone and an eventual a pre-recorded voice requesting that the caller leave a message.  You need to turn on Cox Voice mail under settings.  I was able to verify other COX voice mail messages were left when our phone was busy by looking at the past history.  I also have the a shortcut for the Call History on my cell.

I also saw phone numbers that were Blocked by me, either using the COX *60 feature (maybe about 30max) and my phone button Call Block (maybe max 250).  In both cases when a call come in that is on either blocks, I see "Call Blocked" on the phone handsets window.  The phone is set to ring only once.  Not sure what message the Spammer gets, but a few keep trying over again.

  • ekhawaii's avatar
    ekhawaii
    Contributor
    6 years ago

    I re-read CurtB's post on "Selective Call Rejection"....about the *60 not working because of line switching by COX.  I recently purchased a Panasonic that has a call blocking button that will store 250 numbers instead of the 30 that *60.  I did add my previous few *60 numbers to test how things work. 

    Using the Cox "caller history," I have see a few, especially this guy from Lafayette, Indiana, 765-588...that keep calling about 3:15pm...well he gets blocked after 1 ring....sweet!  I recommend to bookmark the Phone Tools of Cox to monitor your call in both cell phone and web.  https://phonetools.cox.com/#!/

    I also noticed, maybe from another post, a summary of the * features of Cox.  https://www.cox.com/residential/support/phone-features.html

    Another is a comparison of voice vs digital service at Cox. Had this URL bookmarked from like previous link.  https://www.cox.com/residential/support/cox-telephone-service.html

    I find that one needs to try and "poke around" to get a feel how features work or affect you.  Thanks to all the posters who are willing to share their observations...I learned a few things, like having 2 Voice mail options and 2 call rejection options(one on phone and the other on Cox) and of course, the Phone Tool Call History.  Here I can see all calls, from who, and how long my wife is on the phone.  I've added names to it's address book to better display the names since this location is different from my phone's address system.  Utilizing both phone and Cox features is really neat.