FCC asks phone operators to have a system ready to fight automated calls by 2019 – BGR

Automated calls have become so frequent and unavoidable in recent months that the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, sent a letter this week to thirteen of the main CEOs of the telephone operators, ordering them to set up a system to deal with the problem that affects millions of Americans every day by 2019 the last.

according to ReutersPai has asked companies to start using a "call authentication system" to end the use of stolen numbers as early as May. Six months later, he wants to know how these efforts have gone. The letters, which have been sent to Verizon, AT & T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Alphabet, Comcast, Cox and Charter (to name a few) ask for updates from the thirteen before 19 November.

In his letters, Pai specifically cites Sprint, CenturyLink, Charter, and others, because the companies linked to him "do not yet have concrete plans to put in place a robust call authentication framework." This framework digitally validates the transfer of telephone calls passing complex networks of networks, allowing the telephone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is coming from the person supposed to do so. "

YouMail, a company that blocks and tracks automated calls, estimates that 5.1 billion unsolicited calls were received in October, up from 3.4 billion in April. I know that I personally receive between two and four calls of used numbers per day, sometimes more than twenty per week. The FCC is right to call it a "scourge".

"We need call authentication to become a reality," said Pai, "it's the best way to ensure that consumers can answer their phones with confidence. At the same time next year, I hope consumers will start seeing it on their phones. "

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