Sprint and T-Mobile work together to protect customers from scam calls

Sprint and T-Mobile today announced they’re delivering STIR/SHAKEN number-verification across networks, an important step in the industry’s ongoing fight against unwanted scam and spam calls. The new anti-robocalling feature is currently rolling out to T-Mobile and Sprint customers and will give customers peace of mind that calls from the Sprint network to the T-Mobile network (and vice versa) are really coming from the number listed on their caller ID display and are not being spoofed.

“We’re in an arms race with these scammers, and we’ve got to join forces as an industry to keep all wireless customers protected,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “We were first to announce readiness for STIR/SHAKEN, first to implement Caller Verified, and today we lead the industry with the most cross-network STIR/SHAKEN partnerships to keep consumers better protected. T-Mobile will keep innovating and delivering on the frontlines in the battle against unwanted calls, and we won’t stop.”

”While all carriers compete fiercely in the marketplace, we all agree that the industry-wide plague of robocalls and scammers must be tackled arm-in-arm with other carriers as we put the latest technology to work to help protect our customers,” said Sprint CEO Michel Combes. “STIR/SHAKEN is one tool among many that Sprint is utilizing in a multi-year anti-robocalling development program to improve our customers’ experience.”

With work already underway with additional providers, Sprint’s collaboration with T-Mobile is one of several roll outs of STIR/SHAKEN technology to improve protection from robocalls and scammers for Sprint customers. [[Sprint also offers customers Sprint Call Screener Basic, a free service that identifies unwanted malicious calls and permits users to block them, and the more feature-rich Sprint Call Screener Plus premium service. In addition to the services provided by the free service, Sprint Call Screen Plus also displays a texter’s name or a caller’s name, city and state, even those not listed in contacts; identifies, blocks, and reports calls that are lower-risk, but still a nuisance; categorizes incoming calls as spam, robocalls or fraud calls; reports an individual phone number as spam; and keeps history of blocked and risky numbers.

The FCC has recommended STIR/SHAKEN standards to digitally ensure that a call is in fact from the number displayed on Caller ID. The acronym stands for Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN). STIR/SHAKEN, along with other tools such as the use of reasonable analytics, is key to the battle against unwanted robocalls and fraud.