Voice
Comcast Introduces New Advanced Spam Blocker Feature for Xfinity Voice Customers
Voice
Comcast Introduces New Advanced Spam Blocker Feature for Xfinity Voice Customers
Oct 12, 2021
Philadelphia, PA
Comcast today announced a new Spam Blocker feature for Xfinity Voice that gives customers added control over unwanted spam, spoofing and robocalls to their home with the power to block inbound calls that are suspected spam.
According to the TNS 2021 Robocall Investigation Report, average consumers receive approximately 10 unknown calls per week and only four of those calls are wanted; further about, 77% of consumers don’t answer phone calls from numbers they do not recognize. The Spam Blocker feature is another tool to help keep customers in control of their phone service experience and protect them from potentially harmful and annoying robocalls.
Building on the Verified Caller ID feature Comcast rolled out last March, which was the nation’s largest landline voice implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN-based technology, the new Spam Blocker feature categorizes calls as low, medium, and high risk of being a nuisance call. Through the Xfinity Connect portal, customers can choose an action they’d like Xfinity Voice to take based on the risk rating of the call – by default Xfinity Voice will block high risk calls, send medium risk calls to voicemail and allow low risk calls to come through. Customers will receive notifications of the call’s risk rating on their Caller ID as well as on the largest screen in their home – the TV – and can easily manage their preference settings using the Xfinity Connect portal.
“For years, Comcast has been a leader in the industry-wide effort to combat nuisance calls, with advanced call blocking efforts across Xfinity Voice, Comcast Business Voice, and Xfinity Mobile,” said Patti Loyack, Senior Vice President, Consumer Services and Performance, Comcast Cable. “This feature further helps our Voice customers to protect themselves from spam callers and connect only with the people that matter the most.”
Spam Blocker continues Comcast’s longstanding commitment to fighting caller manipulation and fraud by giving consumers additional control over unwanted calls. The company worked with major U.S. providers to conduct the first call between two landline voice networks, and the first end-to-end call across three networks, using the STIR/SHAKEN protocol. In 2020, the company completed the first international authenticated STIR/SHAKEN call between Xfinity Voice residential phone service and Canadian mobile provider, Telus Communications. Xfinity Mobile customers can also enable a call verification feature that uses STIR/SHAKEN technology to label incoming calls that are suspected spam or robocalls.
