September 12th, 2019
While the top six U.S. carriers (AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) account for 70% of total call volume, only 12% of high risk (scam/fraud) robocalls originate from numbers owned by these Tier-1 carriers – according to the 2019 First Half Robocall Investigation Report released today by Transaction Network Services (TNS). The data suggest that while top carriers are making inroads in the fight against robocalls, VoIP providers and smaller regional carriers need to take more aggressive action as bad actors shift focus to their networks.
The TNS 2019 Robocall Investigation Report is a bi-annual update of key robocall trends, analyzing a billion daily call events across hundreds of carriers. The report looks at data for high risk robocalls (scam/fraudulent calls which attempt to acquire call recipient personal information and/or money) as well as nuisance robocalls (which are not of malicious intent or negligent non-compliance).
According to this report, nearly 30% of all U.S. calls were negative (nuisance, scam or fraud calls) in the first six months of the year, resulting in 200 million unwanted calls per day. Additional key findings from the report:
“Two hundred million unwanted robocalls per day is a mind-boggling number, but regulatory and policy action – as well as Tier-1 carrier adoption of advanced data analytics and AI solutions such as Call Guardian – are making it more difficult for bad actors to place scam and fraud robocalls,” said Bill Versen, Chief Product Officer at TNS. “However, with top carriers successfully blocking more robocalls, the report suggests the need for diligence as the battlefront may shift to smaller regional and rural carriers further behind on their path to a call authentication framework and utilizing call data analytics.”
TNS Call Guardian, TNS’ industry leading big-data analytics engine, aims to suppress unwanted calls to consumers by applying machine learning to call events, generating insights and reputation to more than 1.5 billion phone numbers. Earlier this year, TNS also launched Call Guardian Authentication Hub, enabling carriers to quickly and economically go-to-market with a call authentication solution that combats illegal spoofing and better protects subscribers from unwanted robocalls.
To receive a copy of the 2019 First Half TNS Robocall Investigation Report, follow this link: https://tnsi.com/forms/tns-robocall-report-september-2019/