Robocalls: AT&T CEO gets spam call alert on his Apple Watch during a live interview
Dalvin BrownEveryone gets robocalls. Literally — everyone.
From your grandma who only uses a landline to your friend who upgrades his or her smartphone every year, no one is immune – not even telecom titans.
On Wednesday, Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T, was in the middle of a live interview on stage at the Economic Club of Washington D.C. when he got a notification on his Apple Watch indicating that he was receiving a call.
Stephenson temporarily interrupted the interview as he checked to see who was calling.
“I’m getting a robocall, okay,” he said toward the audience while showing them the screen of his smartwatch. “It’s literally a robocall.”
The crowd laughed. After all, it's a relatable situation as billions of robocalls blow up our phones each month.
Stephenson found himself on the receiving end of the same problem that the telecommunications service announced a solution to earlier in the day.
AT&T and Comcast said Wednesday that they tested a system that can authenticate calls made between the two different phone providers' networks, a potential industry first.
The system, which uses a method developed in recent years, verifies that a legitimate call is being made, instead of a one that has been spoofed by spammers, scammers or robocallers, with a "digital signature." The recipient network then confirms the signature on its side. The feature is expected to be available to some users later this year.
Currently, mobile phone users can try spam filters provided by T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and AT&T, which — as Stephenson may be able to attest — aren't always effective.
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