FOUR companies have been fined by the telecoms regulator for making silent calls following the Daily Echo's campaign against the controversial marketing ploy.

Carphone Warehouse has been ordered to pay £35,000 for "causing annoyance" to consumers via the anonymous calls.

Ofcom has also imposed fines of £45,000, £40,000 and £32,000 on the firms Space Kitchens, Bracken Bay Kitchens and Toucan Residential Ltd respectively.

Silent calls occur when automated systems used by call centres generate more calls than the centre's staff can manage. The automated system abandons the call if no agent is available, leaving a silence on the line for the person on the receiving end.

While the method is used to increase productivity for telesales companies it results in thousands of abandoned or silent calls.

Ofcom said that between April and July 2006 all four companies' abandoned call rates regularly exceeded three per cent and in some cases were higher than 20 per cent.

The Echo highlighted the problem during a 15-month campaign with 1,500 readers filling out End The Sound of Silence coupons showing the support calling for a change in the law.

The campaign, run in conjunction with BBC Radio Solent, helped to persuade local and national decision makers of the need for new legislation to clampdown on silent calls.

In response Ofcom - the regulator for the telecommunications industry - introduced new penalties last year increasing fines for companies from £5,000 to £50,000 for breaching the new regulations.

Now callers should be told who is making the calls via a recorded message and have access to the caller's number by dialling 1471 Ofcom also cut the number of permitted "abandoned calls" made by a company within any 24-hour period from five to three per cent.

Sheila Hill, 71, of Winchester Road, Fair Oak, who sparked the campaign against silent calls, was delighted that offenders were being punished.

She said: "The money may be a drop in the ocean to them but at least they are being taken to task for their actions and that is a step in the right direction."

Mrs Hill said since the Daily Echo and Radio Solent's joint silent calls campaign success she had hardly received any of the annoying calls.