The next step calls for the Robocall Strike Force to report back to the FCC on October 19 with recommendations for concrete plans to set into action. Those tools prevent future calls from the same number, but don’t stop telemarketers from making unwanted calls from other numbers.
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Stephenson said in prepared remarks to the FCC that in order to battle robocalling the strike force has to take an approach that involves multiple entities across telecom and the application space.
“This scourge must stop”, Wheeler said on Friday, noting that consumers complain most frequently about these prerecorded nuisances.
Others notable names on the list include BlackBerry, LG, Qualcomm, Sirius XM, Verizon (the company than owns the company that owns this site), Nokia, T-Mobile and Comcast.
The strike force hopes to implement Caller ID verification standards to help block calls from spoofed phone numbers and consider a “Do Not Originate” list that would block spoofers from impersonating legitimate phone numbers from governments, banks or others. However, companies like AT&T have been dragging their feet, claiming to need FCC approval for such technology. That prompted Wheeler to post a call to arms in July with a post titled “Cutting Off Robocalls”, in which he called on tech companies and carriers to work together with the commission.
Commissioner Clyburn was careful to point out in her statements today that the group is walking a fine line between helping consumers and allowing anticompetitive behavior. They also will “further develop and implement solutions to detect, assess and stop unwanted calls from reaching customers”, Stephenson said at the meeting.
That fast-moving mentality is good news for folks sick of getting fake calls from the IRS at dinnertime, but it’s too bad the part of the meeting the public got to see was a little light on the substance. While robocalls are annoying to those being called, they’re also bad for business for many tech firms, whose customers are angered and sometimes wind up ripped off because it’s been hard to block the automated calls.
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Not long after, strike force members in attendance took sequestered themselves behind closed doors to get to work.
