A new ruling by the Federal Communications Commission will allow US carriers to automatically block robocalls. This means that the robocall blocking services that they offer for users can now be turned on by default. This has been one of the most annoying problems that wireless customers have been experiencing but most of the services that their carriers have offered have been opt-in. Users that previously didn’t know about these services will now have the benefit of having robocalls automatically blocked.
Robocalls have become a major problem with some users reporting that they receive dozens of these unwanted and unsolicited calls every day. It’s sometimes hard to detect them as they use spoofed numbers that can sometimes trick you into thinking you’re receiving a local call since it has your own area code. They’re also difficult to manually block since they come from different and multiple numbers.
Carriers have introduced some tools to help avoid and detect the calls which may include an automatic robocall feature. Since they’re opt-in, if you didn’t know that they had it, you didn’t know that there are ways to block them or identify if they’re robocalls.
The Declaratory Ruling by the FCC will let wireless service providers use “reasonable call analytics” in determining which calls should be blocked. While it will be the default setting for their users, they also have to inform customers about this and provide them the option to opt out of it in case they don’t want to automatically block calls.
The ruling will also allow the carriers to offer an optional service that will allow users to block numbers that are not in their contact list or white list. While there is already automatic spam call blocking, this is a more drastic measure and can be used to weed out callers that are not on their trusted list.
