By June 30, 2021, there will be new FCC regulations in effect against illegal spam calls. These will help you trust a caller’s identity by using caller ID authentication to combat spoofed robocalls.
The regulations are known as STIR/SHAKEN, which means Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN). They’ll make it harder for robocallers to call you with a fake caller ID. It will also be easier for the source of spam calls to be identified.
Here are a few details about STIR/SHAKEN:
What’s STIR/SHAKEN?
STIR/SHAKEN will ensure a caller’s ID is legitimate. Before reaching you, calls traveling through interconnected phone networks will have their caller ID confirmed by originating carriers and validated by other carriers. This will give you peace of mind that a call is from the number shown on your caller ID, not a robocaller.
What do I need to do?
As a CallRail customer, you don’t have to do anything to stay compliant with STIR/SHAKEN. Our carriers have updated their systems to ensure your calls will continue uninterrupted.
How do the caller ID “signatures” work?
There will be three levels of calls, known as attestations. Each carrier will assign a level to calls leaving their network: A, B, or C. These levels will help provide clarity about who’s calling you.
- Full Attestation (A): This level is reserved for situations in which a carrier is confident about who’s calling. This will only impact outbound calls. For this level, registration is required. As we receive more information about STIR/SHAKEN, we’ll provide updates on this topic. We hope to allow customers who need A-level attestation to sign up for it.
- Partial Attestation (B): As a CallRail customer, you’ll have this level by default. While we can’t control what a receiving carrier does, this level means your call shouldn’t be treated as spam. CallRail forwards inbound calls, so those calls will always be considered B-level attestation.
- Gateway Attestation (C): This level includes calls considered spam by a carrier.
Will text messaging be affected?
STIR/SHAKEN only covers phone calls, but new measures will affect text messaging for businesses in 2021.
Different requirements related to the Application to Person messaging service, known as A2P 10DLC, are coming and will impact the system in the United States that businesses use to send text messages through 10-digit long code phone numbers. For more on A2P 10DLC, you can refer to our support article: Outbound Messaging Registration.
