Silent calls can now be traced back to the company making them
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Since November last year, Breakfast has been following a story about silent phone calls where companies use computers to dial your home number.
The problem occurs when telemarketing companies use a computer to dial several several numbers at once, but the company making the calls has fewer operators.
The operators - usually sales people - soon start talking to the first people to pick up their phones, leaving the computer dialling the other selected numbers.
And that means that when those people answer, there is nothing but silence.
From today, victims of silent calls will at least be able to find out the number of the company that called them, by using 1471.
But will that be enough?
Breakfast reporter Graham Satchell has been investigating - you can see his latest report by clicking on the link below.
Natasha spoke to John Price from the Direct Marketing Association.
He said that the Association was keen to work with the regulators, Ofcom and British Telecom which handle many of the calls to try and reduce the numbers of silent calls.
Part of the problem, according to John Price is that the Association can only get its members to abide by guidelines - he claimed that if everyone abided by the rules being published by the Association today, then consumers would receive no more than two silent calls per year.
It would be nice if everybody didn't make any silent calls at alll...but the reality is that £3bn of business is generated through this industry. - John Price, Direct Marketing Association
John Price is the hopeful that companies who aren't members of his association, the "rogue traders" will be forced by today's new code of practice to reveal their telephone numbers.
Mark Harrop from British Telecom was also on the programme.
He explained that British Telecom can block calls from known numbers, requested by its customers, but with some overseas calls even they cannot block them.
They're now working on this problem with Ofcom.
Silent calls are not just annoying, they can also be very distressing, especially for the elderly and those living by themselves.
Enabling customers to find out who has called them, via 1471 won't stop the practice. But it will at least provide their number so that victims can complain directly to the companies involved.
You can read more of the background to this story by following the links to the right of this page
The link to the Telephone Preference Service where you can register to stop telemarketing calls is on the right hand side of this page.
Remember that if you are being subjected to nuisance or threatening calls, not from companies, you should contact your telephone service provider who will be able to tell you what you can do and how they can help
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Breakfast's Graham Satchell reports on Silent Calls
