Alternative anti-spam: Sonic hosting the Do Not Call list!

[digitalbitstream]

As I hung up on the most recent 'air duct cleaning services' call, it occurred to me that the problem is the FCC rules.

The regulated telemarketer is meant to check the do not call list.
Those who follow the law loose out.
Those who cheat win.

But there's a better place to check. Sure Sonic has a limited block list of telemarketer calls. But it could be stronger with use of the DNC list. What if sonic.net obtained a copy of the DNC list, and began to block calls directly. There would be some tricky work to avoid blocking emergency/community notification calls. But overall having the phone companies do blocking makes it far harder for the bad guys to cheat. Sonic would need to have an appeal process: not a big problem for humans making the call, and a killer for the robocalls.

This is the kind of service that could make sonic sticky, even as U-Verse rolls out.

[Guest]

They already do this:
http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2012/10/26/so ... -blocking/

[digitalbitstream]

No no, that's just the regular Fusion block list. It's leaky: I'm talking about something stronger.

[digitalbitstream]

A caller making lots of calls may be legitimate.
A caller making a similar number to DNC customers is more suspicious.
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When a call is blocked by Sonic's feature, what message is given? Is there an appeal procedure?

[cdkeen]

No no, that's just the regular Fusion block list. It's leaky: I'm talking about something stronger.

These spam callers use an inordinate amount of disconnected numbers (spoofing the CID info). The numbers vary greatly and the same scam can sometimes be perpetrated from numerous (disconnected) numbers in the same day. Nonetheless our block list grows daily, thanks in part to the contributions in reporting numbers on this thread.

Upgrades to our phone system will someday allow us to implement a per line block feature, as has been frequently requested. Unfortunately I cannot estimate about when such a feature will be available.

Thanks for choosing Sonic.net!

[digitalbitstream]

Based on http://800notes.com
there are a remarkable number of spammers that keep to the same script from the same number.

If phone companies (all of them) enforced the DNC list, it would work a heck of a lot better. This would require the host phone company to understand the caller type (non-profit, medical, telemarketer).

I don't want a per-line block, but rather a *69 type way of reporting spam calls with less hassle, for potential global blocking.