If you want to block unwanted incoming or outgoing voice or video calls on your phone, you can rely on call barring. This service is a great way to restrict incoming calls when you are out of your country or away from work. Call barring is free of cost and is available on almost all smartphones. By enabling or disabling settings, you can choose to receive or restrict the calls.
There are different types of call barring. For instance,
Incoming Call Barring: It allows you to block all incoming calls from a particular number by adding it to the blocked list.
Outgoing Call Barring: By using it, you can restrict unintentional outgoing. This is a great option to restrict premium-rate numbers with additional charges.
International Call Barring: Through this, you can bar international calls that may cost a bomb and burn a hole in your pocket!
Apart from all these features, call barring also includes international call barring except home. Through this, you can restrict all international incoming and outgoing calls except your home. We often use this feature when we don’t want anyone to disturb us. You can use this feature as per your requirements, and it can be of great help to you.
| Recommended Read: International Calls Handbook
Let’s find out more about this feature so that we can make the most of this amazing feature!
Table of Contents
Benefits of Call Barring
The call barring feature offers immense benefits as it manages your time and budget. You can choose the calls you make and receive on your smartphone and manage your budget! Here are some benefits of this feature.
Control the Call You Make and Receive
This feature provides you with the power to control your incoming and outgoing calls. It allows you to restrict unwanted calls and international calls. Through this feature, you can block nuisance calls, prank calls, and unknown numbers to prevent scammers and fraud.
Save Additional Charges
When making a call on premium-rate numbers, you may have to bear additional charges that may be huge. Incoming and outgoing calls to internal numbers may also put a burden on your pocket. By opting for call barring service, you can manage these additional charges and choose to receive and make calls only to important numbers.
Access Control
Through call barring, you can control the access of your staff members to certain numbers. For instance, a security guard of a complex can use call barring to send and receive calls only from the residents and emergency services. If you are running an enterprise, you can limit access to your staff to specific numbers or colleagues from another department.
Security and Risk Management
To control malicious activities in your organization or manage hackers, the call barring feature plays a great role. This will also give you the power to control misuse of company phones for personal use. In case of an emergency, the calls can be easily connected to the authorities concerned without any delays.
This feature is great for security companies and control rooms, mobile users, and inbound service centers can make the best use of this feature.
How to Activate Call Barring?
You can activate this service on your smartphone and can choose from various options, like all incoming calls, all outgoing calls, all international calls, all incoming calls on roaming, etc. When call barring service is enabled on your Android or iPhone, anyone who tries to call you will hear a ‘dead line’ tone or a recorded message saying that the caller cannot receive incoming calls.
Activate on an Android Phone
Follow these simple steps to activate this feature on your Android phone.
- Go to the ‘Settings’ app on your phone.
- Tap on ‘Supplementary Services’.
- Click on ‘Call Barring’ and select either ‘Voice Calls’ or ‘Video Calls’ depending on your requirements.
- As per your preference, you can choose from incoming, outgoing, and international calls except home, and international calls.
- Now tap in your call barring code- 0000. As this is a default code, you can contact your service provider.
The call barring settings are associated with the SIM and in case you change your SIM and switch to another service provider, the setting will not be activated.
Activate on an iPhone
To activate incoming call barring, go to the phone dialer, call **35*CODE#. Your ‘CODE’ is the SIM card passcode, which by default is 0000. Therefore, call **35*0000#.
You can also check your call barring status. For this, open your phone dialer and call on *#35#. This will provide you with the status of whether call barring service is enabled.
Tips to Remember
- All network providers don’t necessarily support call barring.
- Make sure that call barring doesn’t restrict messages on apps like WhatsApp, telegram, Messenger, etc.
- Find out if the feature bar voice calls through apps like WhatsApp or Skype.
- When call barring is on, some callers may hear a ‘dead line’, while others may hear a recorded message or a ring tone.
- When using an iPhone, you can also use the option ‘Silence Unknown Callers’. Through this option, you can divert unknown numbers to voice mail. You can do this using ‘Phone’ option in the ‘Settings’.
- If you have an Android phone, you can also restrict calls from unknown numbers. Go to ‘Settings’ and block unknown numbers.
How to Deactivate Call Barring?
If you want to deactivate the this feature on your smartphones, follow these steps-
Deactivate on Samsung
- Choose the three dots sign in the Samsung phone app.
- Now go to the ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Supplementary Services’.
- Tap on the ‘Call Barring’ option. Now, go to ‘Voice calls’ and turn it off.
Deactivate on iPhone
- Go to the ‘Settings’ on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and choose ‘Phone’.
- Go to ‘Call Blocking and Identification’.
- You can disable the switch here.
You can restrict incoming and outgoing calls using GSM codes. These codes may be different for every service provider.
Wrapping Up
Call barring is a simple and efficient way to restrict incoming and outgoing texts and calls of unwanted numbers. This service is available on both Android and iPhone. There are different types of call barring like incoming call barring wherein you can restrict all the incoming calls from unknown numbers and outgoing call barring, which allows you to restrict unintentional outgoing calls. Apart from these two, international call barring and international call barring except home give you the power to manage all the calls and texts on your smartphones.
Both iPhone and Android phone have this feature and can use this feature in multiple ways to improve businesses like control rooms, mobile users, and inbound service centers. Call barring is a great way to control the calls you make and receive, save additional charges, access control of your teammates and have effective security and risk management.
To activate call barring on your Android phone, you have to go to the ‘Settings’, choose ‘Supplementary Services’, tap on ‘Call Barring’ and choose between voice calls or video calls, etc. Depending upon your requirements. Now tap call bearing code 0000 to enable it. In case you don’t have the code, you can contact your service provider to get complete information.
If you are using call barring, you must remember that not all service providers offer call barring services. Find out if this feature doesn’t restrict any calls or messages on the apps like WhatsApp, Skype, etc. You can also notice that when call barring is on, the callers may hear a dead tone, a ring tone, or a recorded message depending on your network.
Call barring can be a great way to filter nuisance and unwanted calls so that you can save time and energy and improve the productivity of your business.
FAQs
Does call barring affect SMS?
By using this feature, you can have control over the incoming calls and messages. So, you can control which numbers can send you calls and messages. If you want to deactivate incoming calls and messages, you can dial #35*<4-digit code># and call. This can disable the call barring of incoming messages.
How do you know if someone has barred your call?
You can get to know whether someone has barred the call by calling them and hearing the ringtone. If there is only one ring or you hear a voicemail after a ring, it is more likely that your number is barred. You can still try to call the number in the following days, if the ringtone is still the same, it means that your number has been barred.
What do people hear when call barring is on?
When the call barring is on, you can hear only a single ring, or the call goes to a voicemail. You can also hear a recorded message; however, everything depends on the network.
