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A group of 12 major telecommunications companies have signed an agreement with the Attorneys General of 50 states and the District of Columbia to adopt principles to combat automated calls.
AT & T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon all signed the agreement, which was piloted by state AG, Josh Stein, North Carolina. Although the commitment demonstrates the industry's unity against automated calls, it does not contain a specific timeline for implementation.
Nevertheless, while operators are fiercely competing on the wireless front, it seems that the plague of automated calls is something they can collectively take cover. Consumers across the country are daily plagued by illegal and unwanted automated calls. According to the YouMail Robocall Index, Americans faced 4.7 billion automated calls in July alone.
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"It is imperative that we work together to defend a common set of goals, including preventing callers from hiding their identities, collaborating with other operators to identify unauthorized calls at the source, and to prevent issuers from using cookies." send automated calls, "said Kathy Grillo, Verizon's senior vice-president of public policy and government affairs, in a statement.
According to a Stein office publication, the telephone companies will implement free network-level call blocking technology and authentication to ensure calls are not tampered with. This includes the authentication of STIR / SHAKEN calls, which the Federal Communications Commission had previously asked operators to implement by the end of the year. Signing companies are committed to monitoring networks in search of automated traffic and providing their customers with additional easy-to-use call blocking and labeling tools for free.
"Automated calls are a scourge. At best, they are annoying, at worst, they rip people off with their hard-earned money, "Stein said in a statement. "By adhering to these principles, industry leaders are taking new steps to prevent your phone from ringing with an unwanted call. They also agreed to do more to help other state prosecutors and myself locate fraudsters and fraudsters so that we can stop them from attacking people. "
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To help AGs enforce automated anti-call rules, companies will investigate and take action against suspected callers, including notification authorities, and help them track down the origin of illegal automated calls. The participating companies also undertake to require that the other telephone companies with which they have a contract cooperate in the identification of the traceability.
In addition to the four major wireless service providers, other companies have signed the commitment, including Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Comcast, Consolidated Communications, Frontier, United States of America and Windstream.
This commitment is the latest effort to fight illegal and unwanted calls, with Congress working on its own anti-appeal legislation. Last month, the US House of Representatives passed the Stop Automated Calls Act, which will result in tougher penalties for fraudsters who organize illegal and unwanted automated calls.
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In early June, the FCC allowed telcos to automatically identify and block automated calls without the need for customers to register.
In July, AT & T began blocking automated automated calls. The operator said that AT & T Mobility's new consumer lines would come with the automated anti-call service and that it would be automatically added to AT & T's current customer accounts in the coming months.
Just last week, T-Mobile and AT & T announced that their competitors were working together and providing STIR / SHAKEN call verification technology that works on both networks. Both T-Mobile and AT & T have previously announced agreements for inter-network authentication work with Comcast.
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T-Mobile applauded the promise announced today, saying it fully supported constituents. The operator also stated that he was the first to propose STIR / SHAKEN on his network in January and highlighted his free Scam Block service. This service was launched in March 2017 and alerted customers about 1 billion fraudulent calls per month, according to T-Mobile.
FCC President Ajit Pai also praised bipartisan efforts to encourage best practices in the fight against automated calls and identity theft.
"Few things can bring together politicians from across the political spectrum, such as fighting unwanted automated calls," Pai said in a statement. "These principles align with the FCC's own anti-appeal and spoofing efforts. Earlier this month, the FCC adopted rules to apply anti-spoofing bans to international automated calls, as advocated by many of these state attorneys general. "
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