3 more telephone companies agree to help stop illegal robocalls

Three telephone companies have agreed to enforce anti-robocall principles laid out in an agreement from Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford last year.

Twilio Inc., Wabash Communications and Shentel are joining a bipartisan, public-private coalition with 51 attorneys general and 12 other telephone companies, according to a Wednesday press release from the attorney general.

The coalition is meant to protect Nevadans from illegal robocalls, with telephone companies providing technological assistance that makes it easier for attorneys general to investigate and prosecute illegal robocallers.

Robocalls are a growing problem across the country. A 2019 report from the Federal Communications Commission estimated that nearly half of calls placed to U.S. cell phones last year were unwanted.

“I’m encouraged by the additional support,” Ford said in the release. “Robocalls are annoying, illegal and can be outright dangerous, and my office will continue to develop tools and collaborate with our law enforcement partners to protect you from being scammed.”

Companies in the coalition agree to offer customers free and easy-to-use call blocking and labeling tools, analyze and monitor network traffic consistent with robocalls, investigate and report suspicious robocalling or caller ID spoofing and implement methods to authenticate calls.

AT&T Services Inc., Bandwidth Inc., Century Link, Charter Communications Inc., Comcast, Consolidated Communications Inc., Frontier Communications Corporation, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, U.S. Cellular, Verizon and Windstream Services already have joined the coalition.

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.