Comcast RSS Feed - Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 1:00 PM
AT&T, Comcast Announce Anti-Robocalling Fraud Milestone Believed to be Nation’s
First
[https://corporate.comcast.com/media/img/1000w/2019/03/corporate_robocalls-16x9-homepage.jpg]
Nobody likes fraudulent robocalls. That’s why we’re excited to announce that
AT&T and Comcast have taken an important step forward to address the problem –
an exchange of authenticated calls between two separate providers’ voice
networks that is believed to be the nation’s first.
This milestone helps pave the way for AT&T and Comcast to begin offering
authentication on calls between networks to customers later this year.
Customers could soon start to see verified calls not only from callers using
the same provider, but more importantly, from other participating providers.
The test used phones on the companies’ consumer networks – not in a lab or
restricted to special equipment. It was conducted March 5, between AT&T Phone
digital home service and Comcast’s Xfinity Voice home phone service.
The calls were successfully authenticated and verified using the SHAKEN/STIR
protocol – believed to be an industry first for calls between separate
providers. AT&T and Comcast played key roles in developing and refining
SHAKEN/STIR, which is an important tool in the broader effort to combat
fraudulent robocalls.
SHAKEN/STIR verification lets consumers know that an incoming call is really
coming from the number listed on the caller ID display. While authentication
won’t solve the problem of unwanted robocalls by itself, it is a key step
toward giving customers greater confidence and control over the calls they
receive.
For example, a call that is illegally “spoofed” – or shows a faked number –
will fail the SHAKEN/STIR Caller ID verification and will not be marked as
verified. By contrast, verification will confirm that a call is really coming
from the identified number or entity.
Over the coming months, major service providers will be conducting similar
tests with each other's systems, verifying that their SHAKEN/STIR
implementations are compatible.
To learn more about industry and government efforts against illegal and
unwanted robocalls, see a recent blog post from USTelecom
here<https://www.ustelecom.org/lllegal-robocalls-are-no-laughing-matter/>.
AT&T and Comcast jointly chair the working group developing the technical
standards for STIR/SHAKEN. AT&T holds the chairmanship of the industry board
overseeing the SHAKEN/STIR effort and Comcast is a member of that board.
In addition to its leadership role in developing and implementing SHAKEN/STIR,
Comcast’s Xfinity Voice works with Nomorobo<https://www.nomorobo.com/> to make
robocall blocking technology available to the vast majority of Xfinity Voice
customers. Customers can sign up to use Nomorobo service using their Xfinity
username and password. Detailed instructions for using Nomorobo with Xfinity
Voice are available here<https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/nomorobo>.
https://corporate.comcast.com/press/releases/att-comcast-announce-anti-robocalling-fraud-milestone-believed-to-be-nations-first
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info<http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.info>
