T-Mobile, Comcast and Inteliquent achieve STIR/SHAKEN call verification

T-Mobile, Comcast and Inteliquent, Inc. have achieved an industry first in the war against spoofers and scammers, completing the first end-to-end STIR/SHAKEN call verification across three networks.

T-Mobile and Comcast announced STIR/SHAKEN interoperability earlier this year, giving consumers with a growing number of capable smartphones peace of mind that calls from Comcast’s Xfinity Voice phones to T-Mobile phones (and vice versa) are not generated by a scammer spoofing a number.

Now, calls can be routed through Inteliquent as well as directly between T-Mobile and the Xfinity Voice landline phone service and still ensure that the number displayed has been verified. With this technical first, our companies are expanding what is possible with STIR/SHAKEN, not only enabling peer-to-peer call verification but also connections via tandem networks.

Neighbor spoofing — where scammers hijack a phone number to match the area code and 3-digit prefix of the person they’re targeting — is a common scam. People are more prone to answer calls from numbers that look familiar, putting them at risk of falling victim to fraudsters. Today’s news means consumers are more protected against these types of spoofed calls.

“Scammers and spoofers are a scourge on the industry, and at T-Mobile, we’re using every tool available to fight against these bad guys on behalf of consumers,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “We were first to announce STIR/SHAKEN readiness, first to implement caller verification, and first to launch cross-network caller verification … we continue to be on the front lines to keep Un-carrier customers protected, and we won’t stop.”

“Consumers are tired of getting scammed, and Comcast has developed ways to ensure Xfinity customers know the calls they are answering are legitimate,” said Tony Werner, President of Technology, Product and Xperience for Comcast. “This is another milestone in our efforts to implement STIR/SHAKEN. We were one of the first companies to conduct a non-lab exchange of a verified call and we co-authored many of the core STIR and SHAKEN specifications.”

“The communications industry is committed to stopping call spoofing, which seriously harms consumers,” stated Surendra Saboo, Inteliquent’s President. “Inteliquent fully supports the FCC’s recent STIR/SHAKEN initiative, and we’re excited about our new collaboration with T-Mobile and Comcast. Together, we can prevent scammers from connecting with citizens.”

STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) standards are recommended by the FCC to identify authentic calls on networks. T-Mobile and Comcast’s Xfinity Voice were the first to deliver network interoperability in April 2019. Comcast has implemented STIR/SHAKEN for all Xfinity Voice home phone subscribers, authenticating outgoing residential calls and validating incoming authenticated calls.

As part of today’s news, T-Mobile also announced that Caller Verified, the Un-carrier’s implementation of STIR/SHAKEN, is now operable across 17 smartphones, with more coming soon. Caller Verified is live today for all T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile customers, and customers with these devices and the latest software update will automatically see “Caller Verified” on their screen for authentic calls from the T-Mobile network and Comcast’s Xfinity Voice home phone service.