Imagine if you will, the impact that the telephone had on society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the mid-19th century it was possible to send communications over long distances quickly, but it still wasn’t instant. The telegraph got messages there fast, but you still needed an operator on both sides to transcribe a short message, send it insanely slowly, and then an operator on the other side had to find the recipient. Having messages that took a day to arrive was a big improvement over ones that took months, but it still wasn’t instant.
The telephone changed all that. Envisioned from the very beginning as a system in every home and office, the telephone let people talk freely to people anywhere on the planet as if they were in the same room. It essentially eliminated the concept of distance in communication.
That was then
That’s why it’s so sad that voice calling has almost completely disappeared today, at least for personal use. Texting has replaced voice calls for common communication, and if we really want to have a conversation, we use a video chat app. Just punching in a bunch of numbers and getting a voice on the other end seems to have gone out of style.
We all know why. Too many spammers, too many robocalls. Most of us cringe if we see a voice call coming through. Our friends and family know to text us, so any voice call must be a robot or salesperson. Maybe, just maybe, though, that might be changing.
This is now
A decade ago, the FCC started its war on robocalls. I wrote about it back then, too. It took almost all that time for any progress to be made. Finally, I think that the campaign is headed in the right direction. The first step, back in 2019, was to roll out mandatory compliance with the STIR/SHAKEN protocols. These protocols force cell carriers to prove that phone calls are coming from the numbers they claim to. Carriers that didn’t comply would just be disconnected from the US phone network, period.
Last year, the FCC stepped up even further, aggressively targeting those calls coming from overseas carriers. They got some high-profile wins, too. And I have to admit that although I was cynical, the number of true robocalls has dropped a lot in the last year. I think that spam call blocking from carriers like AT&T has helped, and I think a few of the big players in the robocall game were knocked out finally.
One last bit is that most cell carriers have rolled out true caller ID. Until a few years ago, you only got an ID on a call if they were in your contacts list. By using Caller ID information, you feel better about answering a call even if you don’t know the number.
One more challenge before we can feel comfortable
I don’t know about you, but I still cringe when the phone rings. Even though it’s not going to be a robot, I can’t guarantee it will be a friendly voice either. Now that robocalls are on the decline, the FCC needs to take action on people who violate the Do Not Call protocol. They also need to tighten up Do Not Call rules so that they make more sense. That’s going to be the biggest battle.
Right now, there are two kinds of calls that are totally legal and exempt from Do Not Call rules. The first is political calls, and that’s probably never going to go away. No politician is going to vote for a law that stops them from fundraising. The other is that a company can call you as much as they want within 18 months of your contacting them. Most companies are respectful if you tell them to shove off. Some aren’t, and those are the companies that need to be disciplined.
There’s also another loophole that’s actively being exploited. For the most part, the FCC doesn’t investigate people who have one violation of the Do Not Call rules. They don’t even know about the spammer unless you report them, and then they only go after the big fish. Unscrupulous companies will use this to their advantage. Call centers will hire independent contractors and encourage them to use their own made-up company names. That way, if they violate the Do Not Call rules, it’s their first offense. It means they’ll almost never get caught.
I don’t know how…
I don’t know how this is going to get fixed, honestly. But we have come very far in this whole thing and I think we can make it all the way. Imagine a world where the phone rings (or vibrates, no one has a ringtone anymore) and you look at the caller ID. It’s not someone you recognize, but it could be something you’re interested in. You answer the call, it’s a telemarketer, and you tell them to take a flying leap. And they do. You never hear from them again. Sooner or later the telemarketing industry slims down so that only ethical players are left. And at that point, we can all get back to actually talking again.
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