T-Mobile announces enhanced caller ID service that sounds just like Google Verified Calls
If you have a smartphone and live in the US, you’re no doubt familiar with the scourge of robocalls that bombard our telephone systems. There wereover 50 billion robocallsplaced in the last year — even the head of the FCCcan’t keep them away from her phone. The proposed answer to this inundation of unwanted calls is STIR/SHAKEN, a system designed to authenticate the information in your caller ID. T-Mobile is among the carriers working to improve caller ID verification, so it’s no surprise that it’s taking another step towards establishing industry best practices.
Today,T-Mobile announcedit’s working with the cellular telecommunications trade group, CTIA, to develop a list of regulations and policies for businesses to take advantage of this new caller ID program. This move builds on the carrier’s progress throughout the last half-decade. Three years ago, it was one of the first companies toimplement the new STIR/SHAKEN protocols, while last summer, it placed thefirst wireless call to make use of Rich Call Data.
There are a few technologies at play here, but the foundation of all of them is the STIR/SHAKEN protocols. Basically, it’s a process for the origin of a call to verify itself to the terminus of a call, preventing caller ID spoofing. Built into STIR/SHAKEN is something called Rich Call Data. RCD is an improved, powerful version of caller ID. Instead of limiting its display to a name and a number like traditional methods, RCD allows businesses to include a logo, website, and a reason for calling.
Now, amidst all this talk of verified calls, there’s the elephant in the room that we’ve yet to mention: Google. Two years ago, Google rolled outits own version of verified callsindependent of the STIR/SHAKEN protocol. However, Google’s requirements differ quite a bit from other implementations. To participate in Google’s calling program, a business needs to register itself with the company, routing its outgoing calls through Google’s systems. Even then, that branded information is only displayed to a caller using Google’s Phone app.
Luckily, T-Mobile’s system — the same one demoed last summer — won’t need that extra infrastructure. A third party like Google won’t verify the RCD when placing a call. Instead, it’s verified by those STIR/SHAKEN protocols, meaning it won’t be an extra service — it will be wholly integrated with the incoming call. This enhanced caller ID isn’t publicly available yet, but hopefully, this announcement from T-Mobile means we’ll be seeing it on all our smartphones soon.
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This article is sponsored by Total Wireless.
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