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T-Mobile and Sprint now verify calls across their networks to fight scammers

Alex Wagner

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As T-Mobile and Sprint await a judge’s decision on their merger, the two carriers are teaming up in a different way.

T-Mo and Sprint announced today that they’re partnering on STIR and SHAKEN call verification across networks. This means that calls made from Sprint to T-Mobile and vice versa will be verified, allowing consumers to answer an incoming call and know that the number is not being spoofed.

The STIR and SHAKEN standards verify that an incoming call is actually who it says it is by validating the handoff of calls. This combats caller ID spoofing, which is a when a scammer hijacks a phone number to match the area code and three-digit prefix of the person they’re calling to make their call look legitimate.

T-Mobile has also partnered with Comcast Xfinity Voice home phone service, AT&T, and Inteliquent to verify calls across their networks.

”While all carriers compete fiercely in the marketplace, we all agree that the industry-wide plague of robocalls and scammers must be tackled arm-in-arm with other carriers as we put the latest technology to work to help protect our customers,” said Sprint CEO Michel Combes.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere agreed, saying, “We’re in an arms race with these scammers, and we’ve got to join forces as an industry to keep all wireless customers protected.”

Also announced today is that T-Mobile’s Caller Verified feature is available on 23 smartphones. With this feature, you’ll see “Caller Verified” on your screen when an incoming call has been confirmed as authentic using STIR and SHAKEN.

The T-Mobile phones that support Caller Verified include the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy Note 8, LG G8 ThinQ, LG G7, and LG V40.

 

UPDATE: I’ve now got the full list of devices that support Caller Verified. It’s a mix of T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile devices:

Source: T-Mobile

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