TDS Telecom reports that it screened more than 30 million calls and blocked 4.9 million suspected illegal calls in June. The information was part of an update of TDS’s implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN anti-robocall protocol.
STIR/SHAKEN stands for Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN). The FCC’s deadline to implement the protocol in the IP portions of carrier networks is today (June 30).
TDS introduced STIR/SHAKEN in California in January and subsequently rolled it out in its 31-state footprint. “Unwanted calls, including those that falsify Caller ID information, can result in fraud as well as pose a danger to public safety,” Andrew Petersen, TDS’ senior vice president of corporate affairs, said in a press release about the TDS STIR/SHAKEN implementation. “On behalf of TDS, I’d like to thank the members of Congress and the FCC for their leadership on this important consumer protection program.”
STIR/SHAKEN rules were adopted by the FCC in March 2020. They enable carriers to verify that the caller ID information transmitted with a call matches the caller’s number. The goals are to combat spoofing by identifying calls that are falsely identified before they reach the target number. Spoofers falsely identify calls to make it more likely that called parties will answer the phone.
TDS is just one of numerous companies that must implement STIR/SHAKEN.
On March 17, Verizon said that it was exchanging more than 24 million calls daily with U.S. wireless carriers using STIR/SHAKEN. The carrier claimed to have protected more than 75 million customers for more than 10 billion spam calls.
A week later, T-Mobile said that was partnering with Spectrum Voice from Charter Communications on STIR/SHAKEN and claimed to be working with all major networks in the US on the protocol. The company said that it had protected more than 80 million customers from more than 33 billion possible spam calls.
