Combatting Robocalls for Our Customers

Danny Bowman, Charter’s Chief Mobile Officer, speaks for most people when he says, “unwanted robo and spam calls are a major source of frustration for just about anyone with a phone.” That’s why we are proud to announce a new collaboration with Hiya, a leading call-blocking technology producer, to help us address this problem head-on and fulfill our commitment to providing a superior customer experience. Charter’s partnership with Hiya will help our customers identify spam calls, block specific numbers, and identify calls from businesses. 

“Not only are robocalls a nuisance for our customers, but they also infringe on customers’ sense of privacy and security. We are pleased to partner with Hiya to provide Spectrum Mobile customers another tool to help thwart unwanted and harmful calls,” says Bowman. 

Spectrum Mobile™ customers who download the Hiya app can take advantage of free features, like spam ID, manual blocking of specific numbers and caller ID for businesses, that help users take control of the mobile experience. Customers also have the option to upgrade to Hiya’s premium app for a fee, which includes advanced features to automatically block fraud, spam, and other nuisance robocalls, as well as identify unknown calls based on Hiya’s caller directory.

Collaborating with Hiya is just the latest action Charter has taken to help customers stop unwanted robocalls. In 2019, we joined the FCC’s initiative to protect our residential voice and mobile customers from illegal and unwanted robocalls and committed to launch several new robocall mitigation solutions before the end of 2020. We started by implementing the STIR/SHAKEN protocol across our network at the end of 2019, which helps identify caller-ID spoofing and the sources of fraudulent calls. Charter is also a member of USTelecom’s Industry Traceback Group, which works with law enforcement and government agencies to identify the origins of illegal or harmful robocalls. We are building on these efforts this year to develop analytics tools that will enable more sophisticated call-blocking practices. 

Charter continues to offer our home-phone customers additional features at no cost, allowing them to accept only select calls, block unwanted callers, block anonymous calls, and automatically block calls that appear to originate from numbers on the industry-developed Do-Not-Originate (“DNO”) list. By the end of this year Charter will be rolling out additional enhancements that will help consumers verify that the phone number displayed on their Caller ID is really that caller’s phone number, alert them when a call is potential spam, and even automatically block calls that are likely malicious. Charter has also offered Spectrum Voice® customers the ability to download Nomorobo, a third-party application that controls unwanted calls. We continue to build on all of these tools, including with our Hiya collaboration, and applaud FCC Chairman Pai for his continued efforts and commitment to “combat the robocall scourge.”

We understand how frustrating these robocalls are and the risk they can pose to consumers, and will continue to work with the FCC and our industry partners to find ways to protect our customers. Charter is confident that this free app will give Spectrum Mobile customers yet another tool to help reduce nuisance robocalls.  

More information about downloading the Hiya app is available at spectrum.com/mobile/robocalls.