Verizon Will Give Subscribers Free Access To Anti-Robocall Tools (engadget.com)

Verizon says it will give all its subscribers free access to its spam alert and call blocking tools, so long as their phones can support the features. From a report: The carrier originally rolled out those tools over a year ago as part of its $3-per-month Call Filter add-on. But starting in March, subscribers with compatible smartphones (including iPhone and Android devices) will be able fend off unwanted robocalls without having to pay extra. Verizon says it will release more info on how to sign up for the free tools near their launch date.

Comments

Smart move

[olsmeister]

I wasn't signed up for the $3 a month thing, but if this works well it'll definitely keep me as their customer.

Next month...

[Anonymous Coward]

Next Month Verizon offers businesses a way to bypass the user controls for approved functions.

An extra fee guarantees someone will rubber stamp your request.

Robocalls continue..

Re: And for free . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesnâ(TM)t verizon already have access to this info? I would think using tools from your own carrier would result in the lowest ammount ofadditional data propogation provided it doesnt give them a way around regulatory data sharing rules (are there any?) bia the apps terms of service.

Alternately

[Alypius]

One could simply whitelist their calls; unrecognized numbers go to voicemail. If it's important, they'll leave a message, call back right away, or both. No app for tracking contacts needed.

Re:Alternately

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you need an app to track contacts, otherwise nothing is there to say if a number is recognized or not.

Re:Alternately

[wwphx]

The problem is volume, and people like my wife who receives calls from people outside the observatory who need to get ahold of her whom she doesn't have in her contacts. And as she's an astronomer, she has weird sleeping hours and Do Not Disturb hours don't work well for her.

But our major scourge of robocalls, like many, are forged from our local area code and prefix. I'm really hoping that this service will help with that. Had I known about the $3 service, I would have subscribed to it ages ago for her! Me, I let any unrecognized number go to voicemail, the look it up on 800notes.com then deal with it as appropriate. I have a VERY long block list on my phone.

Re:Alternately

[markdavis]

>"One could simply whitelist their calls; unrecognized numbers go to voicemail."

And you get a notification for voicemail, then have to stop and go into that app and wait for it to load it, then play it back, only to find the message is a robocall, then delete it. And yes, about 1/4 of such annoying calls leave messages on both my home and cell phone.

I would much prefer to have:

1) No more number spoofing- or at least a huge improvement.

2) The ability to completely silently throw a captcha at any incoming number not in my contacts or whitelisted. Something like "dial 32 to continue" or "press 1 to hang up, 2 to ring through, or 3 to hold" or a list of names with which button to press, only one being correct. Having more than a few would be helpful.

3) The ability for it to then HANG UP on any failed captcha calls with NO ability for them to leave annoying voicemail. Logging is good, though.

4) Bonus for doing something similar for texting (seems to be much less of a problem, however).

This should be possible, all locally, with a local app, if Android allows the correct permissions (like to prevent ringing AND to hang up on a call). No servers. No monthly fees. No data dependency. I seem to remember this being a problem on unrooted Android, though.

Of course, that wouldn't do much for land line- but there are already similar devices available for that:

http://www.tel-lynx.com/

Re:Alternately

[jbmartin6]

I tried a "not in my contacts" app for a while, the problem was it could only kick in after the call was received by the phone. I expect some sort of internal segmentation between apps and the core phone function. As a result, sometimes the phone would ring once then go to voicemail, and I would still get the 'missed call' notification. So not a big improvement over simply not answering unknown numbers.

Re:Alternately

[Falos]

I answer unknown numbers.

Muted.

If it's a human, they'll call out in confusion. If it's a robot, either they're silently waiting for audio (and will eventually hang up) or they'll launch into a spiel. And eventually hang up.

Detecting a premature call termination is trivially easy, and identifies you as a hot number (OMG WHY DO I GET SO MANY CALLS ensues). Let them hang up. Gag the volume, put the phone down, go back to whatever you were doing, and let the robot talk itself out. They give up quickly.

A few are advanced enough to open with a cheery "Hello! This is Michael." but you can usually tell. Real humans are confused at the odd silence and speak accordingly.

Re:Alternately

[markdavis]

The main issue is that I have already been interrupted. I don't want to be interrupted in the first place nor later with bogus voicemail. I want technology to screen the calls for me to ensure that it is an actual legit call before getting my attention with a ring OR allowing voicemail.

This is why dumping to voicemail fails.
This is why "DND" fails.
This is why ignoring calls fails.
This is why existing anti-spam call apps fail (because they ring through once and/or still allow voicemail).

We have the technology now, we just need to use it. I hardly ever give my mobile number out to anyone, certainly not any business of any type. Yet I give my work land-line number out freely and never get ANY automated calls and rarely get human spam calls. Why? Because my work number is answered by an auto-attendant and they must enter my extension number to get to me. So all the robocalls get trapped at the front door. Doing something similar in a local app should be exceedingly easy now.

Re:Alternately

[Greyfox]

I used to run this on my home phone back in the day. I the Asterisk Open Source PBX system installed on my computer and a PSTN-to-SIP gateway plugged into my phone line. This allowed me to present a simple voice menu that none of the automated/cold callers ever seemed to make it through. For all a smartphone's "Smarts", I don't seem to be able to replicate this on one of them. Maybe I should just build a Raspberry Pi "phone" that only connects to wifi and uses that connection to monitor a VOIP line with Asterisk. I'm not sure the world's ready for a phone that's just a phone and doesn't try to track you or intrude on you with advertising every second of the day. Oh wait, that's what our old timey wired phones were.

Remind(tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

And at the same time,verizon is charging Remind fees to combat text message spam. Though they may be reversing course?

Re:"Free"

[Shotgun]

How about "decreased network usage"?

Verizon is like every gym out there. They want to sign you up, and tell you how great their equipment is in order to do it, but they'd really prefer you not actually use it so that they can sell it to even more users.

Re:What about FIOS phones?

[rkhalloran]

I'm on AT&T's FTTH service, and have the landline phone signed up on : http://nomorobo.com/ which they don't charge landlines for ($2/mo on mobile). One ring then silence; wonderful...

Compatible phone?

[jbmartin6]

What are the features required on the user's phone? I expected this could all be implemented on the carrier side.

Re:Compatible phone?

[vlueboy]

What are the features required on the user's phone? I expected this could all be implemented on the carrier side.

It's not so simple anymore. Remember the big hoopla a few weeks ago over the emergency broadcast system? that's not just a "text" you're implementing, but something that Android and iOS must expect from the carrier, and place appropriate options for in the GUI.

I never got bothered by one of those semi-mandatory alerts on my older phone running Android 4 because there was no hardware support on the phone side and nothing the telco could do would force me, since the commands wouldn't be understood.

My breakage-replacement phone ended up being an intro-level non-Samsung Android a couple years back that happened to run the newish version 7.
I was disappointed to find that root is required to edit the system xml file that allows "ignoring" the broadcasts enabled by this government-centric carrier / OS pairing. The non-root OS allows me to disable all but the presidential alerts, for instance. Again, the feature is carefully planned some work

Then there are little things like
* GPS support for 911 calls (I recall that prior to some specific boating-related death in the US, GPS wasn't even a must on dumb cellphones)
* Wifi calling (this is stupid for the most part but makes some sense if your carrier allows one of the few rare plans with international support when you go abroad and don't want a local phone sign-up --or just have a poor signal at home and need your router)
* High Quality voice support (Not sure how much closer it is to that ol' landline quality since actual music still won't come thru like we all took for granted with our wires decades ago... it seems to require the same company on both ends for me so far, but I've had this work with a friend who uses iOS on a newish iPhone while mine runs version 7)
* Video calls from the built-in dialer app (another same-company (in my small sample-sized experience so far) but it's cool that the option is there without needing to add stupid ephemeral apps from Google's ecosystem for tracking)

Good move

[DaMattster]

I'm sick of the robo calls, scammers, and telemarketers. I have one calling me everyday at 10am without fail. It's always a company trying to sign me up for Lyft. I never answer anymore. Since I have enhanced name ID, I can see the name of the person calling me and it's already someone different whom I don't know so I just don't answer anymore. Unfortunately, my carrier charges for this enhanced service but it's only two bucks. Not breaking the bank.

Verizon MVNOs too? Or only Verizon proper?

[RockyMountain]

Anybody know?

Re:"Free"

[Raistlin77]

Congratulations, you've just described every service provider from nearly every industry in existence.