Few things are as irritating as spam calls, and today, T-Mobile announced that it's taking a couple steps forward in helping make sure you have to deal with them as infrequently as possible.

Scam ID and Scam Block, two features that T-Mobile launched about 18 months ago for identifying spam calls and blocking them before they can even ring your phone, are now being integrated at the network level. According to T-Mobile, this means the services now work better than ever and are more effective at helping you stay spam-free.

Additionally, T-Mobile also announced that it's now the first wireless carrier in the industry that's equipped to meet the FCC's STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Secure Handling of Asserted information using ToKENs) standards. Per T-Mobile:

When adopted industry-wide, these standards will allow customers to know the calls they are receiving are verified as authentic and not spoofed or hijacked.

Commenting on this news, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said:

Since launching Scam ID and Scam Block 18 months ago, we've tagged over 6 billion calls as Scam Likely and blocked over 1 billion scam calls. This is an industry-wide issue. It's estimated that by 2019, nearly half of all calls to mobile phones will be scam attempts! And when the other guys join us in adopting STIR/SHAKEN standards, every consumer will be even better protected. We'll do our part to keep protecting Un-carrier customers, so you can be free to enjoy your phone – without worry!

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