Thank you for the well researched and well documented information. It's very helpful!
(assuming you'll read this) Can you tell tell us if you're on a POTS line or VoIP such as Uverse, Xfinity, etc. please?
Also, what is the total investment in all of the devices?
My reason for asking is that the great setup you propose may be the only option for POTS lines... which is unfortunate as AT&T (and the very few) other hard wired - POTS - services are trying to get rid of the POTS service altogether, as I'm sure you are aware of. (Witness how the rates for POTS lines keep climbing at an insane rate - and the cost of each "feature" is becoming prohibitive (which is a Joke as you know - since ALL of the features - per line - on an ESS5 or ESS7 switching (exchange) system come turned on by default, when the unit is shipped and installed - and them manually turned off just to charge to have them reactivated).
The reason to switch everyone to VoIP is sinister and unnecessary. It cost near nothing for the TelCo's to route calls and maintaining VoIP networks... It's just the internet.
The point that (I'm finally getting to) is that we need to organize and put pressure on the phone companies to stop this muckraking. They are responsible because they have everything to win from scammers and robo-callers... yet we pay outrageous sums of increasing money each month for something that costs them near nothing. Why? Because we are not a business. There's no negotiation for private individuals.
I'm not a fan of getting government involved in yet another way they can abuse the loopholes in laws (like the DNCR - Politicos and "charities" are allowed to harass me? NOT!) and of course, without proper oversight, they just open new ways for the corporations to screw us.
Someone please start a group to stop this madness and make the phone carriers accountable! I'll be the first in line to support that.
Meantime we're stuck having to pay even more money (without a refund from Ma Bell) on more and more equipment to fight a war that shouldn't exist, just to make the phone companies richer. Blocking isn't going to put that much of a dent in the money they get from scammers. There's just not enough people willing to invest and learn how to set up and program the array of boxes. (What happens to all those blockers when AT&T gets fined for profiting off of this and stops all the B.S.?)
Aug,16,2015 Just got a call from this number, I answered ID said Aurora, Person said "Hello Mam, I from the federation of Illinois police and we are, right then and there I cut him off, and said, "don't even try this my husband is a policeman, and nothing is going on, why would a suburb call Chicago trying to collect money. He hung up