Chairman Pai Proposes Mandating STIR/SHAKEN To Combat Robocalls

Sat Mar 7 04:04:02 UTC 2020

On Fri, 2020-03-06 at 18:37 -0500, bzs at theworld.com wrote:
> 
> Why don't they just ask the phone companies who are billing these
> robocallers who they are and we can arrest them.

Exactly.

I have always maintained that if my phone number were one of those
"premium" numbers (1-976 -- maybe I am dating myself but you know what
I mean -- where calls to it were billed at $5/min), I am sure that my
telco (the one providing me the premium number on my the phone line
that runs into my location) would always know exactly who to send the
bill to for every call that called my number, including robocallers[1].

So, if my telco can bill the callers for those premium calls, they
surely know who they are, or at least know where they are sending the
bill and getting payment from.

But who are we kidding?  The telcos have been making money hand over
fist with robocalls and are not really all that motivated to dry up
that revenue stream.  Regulation (as much as I hate it in general) is
the only solution.

Making the allowing of robocalls more expensive than preventing them is
the only solution.  Whether that is through fines as a result of
regulation or otherwise.

Cheers,
b.

[1] I remember hearing a story of a guy, in the UK I think, that got a
premium number and then printed business cards with it on it and then
ran around a trade show handing out the cards.  That seems kind of
shady, but the idea of getting a premium number and having it
criminally sold to telemarketers, phishers and scammers makes me giddy.