T-Mobile and Comcast FIRST to Give Customers New Anti-Robocalling Feature

What’s the news

In an industry first, T-Mobile and Comcast today launched cross-network robocalling protection built on STIR/SHAKEN standards, giving consumers confidence that the call they’re getting is from a person, not a robocaller or scammer. 

Why it matters

It’s the first time consumers can use STIR/SHAKEN standards across networks, the first step towards industry-wide call verification.

Bellevue, Washington — April 17, 2019 — T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) today announced they’ve taken an important step in the industry’s ongoing fight against unwanted calls – the two companies are first to deliver consumer protection from robocalls and spam across networks. The new verification feature is available now for T-Mobile customers and coming later this year for Comcast Xfinity Voice home phone service customers and uses STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) standards to identify authentic calls across both company’s networks. That means you’ll have peace of mind that calls from Comcast home phones to T-Mobile phones (and vice versa) are not generated by a scammer spoofing a number.

As part of today’s news, T-Mobile also announced that Caller Verified, the Un-carrier’s implementation of STIR/SHAKEN, is now operable across ten smartphones, with more coming soon. Caller Verified is live today for all T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile customers on the LG G8 ThinQ and Samsung Galaxy Note8 and Note9, Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+, and coming soon to the new Samsung Fold and Samsung Galaxy A6. Customers with these devices and the latest software update will automatically see “Caller Verified” on their screen for authentic calls from the T-Mobile network and Comcast Xfinity Voice home phone service.

“Robocalls and spam calls are an industry-wide problem, and we’ve got to join forces to keep consumers protected. Today, we’re the first to cross industry lines to do just that,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “We were first to announce readiness, first to implement Caller Verified, and now first to authenticate calls across networks, with Comcast. T-Mobile continues to remain on the frontlines in the battle against unwanted calls, and we won’t stop.”

“Fraudulent robocalls hurt everyone, so we want to give consumers more power to protect themselves,” said Eric Schaefer, Senior Vice President and GM of Broadband and Communications Services at Comcast Cable. “Our engineers played a key role in developing this technology for the entire industry, and we are happy to work with T-Mobile to deliver another first in the fight against fraudulent robocalls. In the coming weeks, we’ll be exchanging authenticated calls with more providers across the industry as we come together to tackle this problem.”

T-Mobile was first to announce readiness for the FCC-recommended STIR/SHAKEN standards in November and first in the wireless industry to implement STIR/SHAKEN when it launched Caller Verified on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 in January.

Apps Don’t Cut It for Scam Protection
Caller Verified is just the latest innovation from T-Mobile to help protect customers against robocalls and scammers. Over two years ago, T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile were the first wireless providers to deliver free scam protection built right into the network for customers…no app or opt-in required. Calls are analyzed as soon as they reach the T-Mobile network, and scam calls are then tagged ‘Scam Likely’ to warn the customer. T-Mobile Scam ID database is updated every 6 minutes and uses advanced spoofing detection technology not possible in an app.