Disconnecting robocalls

AT&T, Comcast team up to fight scammers.

The fight against robocalls can even bring telecom rivals together.

AT&T and Comcast said Wednesday that they can authenticate calls made between the two providers’ networks, a potential industry first and the latest in the long-running battle against spam calls.

Using AT&T’s Phone digital home phone service and Comcast’s Xfinity Voice home phone service, the companies successfully tested the feature over regular consumer networks and not in a lab, the companies said.

The system, which uses a method developed in recent years, verifies that a legitimate call is being made instead of one that has been spoofed by spammers, scammers or robocallers with a “digital signature.” The recipient network then confirms the signature on its side.

The companies said consumers will get a notification that a call is verified, but exactly what that will look like is not yet known.

AT&T and Comcast will roll out the system to home phone users this year at no extra charge. AT&T said it also will introduce the feature to its mobile users this year.

Other major wireless and traditional home voice providers have pledged support for the verification method, including Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Charter, Cox and Vonage.

T-Mobile began rolling out verified calls on its mobile network this year, though it does so only for calls between T-Mobile customers. You also need a compatible phone, which is now limited to recent LG or Samsung models.

The progress comes amid increased wariness from consumers about robocalls and spoofed numbers. A report in February from the Federal Communications Commission cited data from First Orion, a provider of phone call and data transparency solutions, that projected 44.6 percent of calls to mobile phones in 2019 will be scam calls.