Using SipGate to set up a BANANAPHONE!

Like many of you, I'm inundated with spam calls. I've suffered endless car accidents, my National Insurance Number has been suspended multiple times, and my broadband will be cut off imminently. Wouldn't be nice to screen out all the fraudsters?

So I've set up a Bananaphone. When people ring me, they get 30 seconds of my favourite song. Then the call is passed to me. The theory being that my friends get to enjoy a short ditty but con artists are likely to hang up before the call connects to me.

As detailed in last year's blog, I've set my Android phone up to make and receive SIP calls. I use the SipGate service which, as well as being cheap, has a nifty API.

It's a pretty simple service to set up. Once you've signed up and activated the developer package, set up a webhook:

Give it a URL which spits out this bit of XML:

 XML<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Response>

   <Play>

      <Url>https://example.com/banana.wav</Url>

   </Play>

</Response>

There are a bunch of examples in a variety of language.

The WAV file has some specific format requirements. Specifically, it needs to be an 8kHz 16bit PCM WAV file.

And... that's it! It's a bit early to say whether it has eliminated spammers (or turned off legitimate callers). I might go a bit further and change this to a recording which says "This call is protected by spam guard. Press 1 to be connected." But this is a quick, easy, and fun solution.