Comcast is launching a massive campaign to protect customers from illegal landline robocalls and caller ID spoofing. The company’s new Verified Caller ID feature—considered the nation’s largest landline voice implementation of STIR/SHAKEN—displays a Verified (V) label on authenticated calls.
As if a global pandemic weren’t enough, Americans received an estimated 46 billion robocalls nationwide in 2020, according to YouMail, which suggested each US household suffers an average 350-plus spam calls each year. With that in mind, the telecom industry developed new technology to combat pesky spammers. The “STIR” (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and “SHAKEN” (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) protocols are meant to curb spoofed phone numbers.
The process enables voice providers to “sign” and “verify” caller ID information in an attempt to prevent folks from deceiving and defrauding customers. So, those weekly calls from Mom will continue, but a prankster trying to reach you from “The White House” would be challenged.
“Comcast engineers helped pioneer STIR/SHAKEN and the company has been a leader in the industry-wide effort to combat fraudulent calls since day one,” Kelly Barlow, senior vice president of connectivity services at Comcast, said in a statement. “We’ll continue to enable our customers with the tools to protect themselves and partner within the industry to help rid the nation’s consumers of these dangerous calls for good.”
Non-Comcast customers, meanwhile, can find their own methods to block robocalls—via built-in iOS and Android features or third-party apps. You can also register your mobile and landline numbers with the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry, though that won’t stop scammers and disreputable telemarketers from phoning.
