Latest / Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast / **Why Nobody Answers the Phone Anymore: The Hidden Business Cost of “Spam Likely”**

Transcript

**Why Nobody Answers the Phone Anymore: The Hidden Business Cost of “Spam Likely”** · Connectivity Without Chaos - The Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the last time your phone buzzed with an unknown number.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: You probably stared at the screen,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: saw that,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: spam likely warning,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: hit ignore,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: and then found out hours later it was actually your doctor trying to reach you
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: about test results.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's become this completely ingrained reflex for all of us.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've actually reached a point where something like 85%
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: of people just flat out refuse to answer their ringing phones.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Which is wild.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: So today's deep dive pulls from some recent telecom industry interviews looking
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: at tech insights from places like Provision Networks
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: to figure out why carrier networks are suddenly treating legitimate hospitals like
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: hackers.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And how cryptographic tech is trying to fix it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But to understand the fix, you really have to look at how we broke caller ID in the first place.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start there.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: How did we get to a point where we can't even trust our own screens?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the fracture really happened when the world moved away from TDM.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's time division multiplexing.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: The old copper wires, right?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those are these rigid physical networks where every single call had a dedicated traceable path.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But over the last couple of decades, we replaced that with SIP, Session Initiation Protocol.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Which is internet-based.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's packet-switched.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: SIP is way cheaper and highly programmable,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: but it fundamentally separates the call's signaling path from
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: the actual voice media path.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that separation is the issue?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: That design choice is exactly what allows spoofing.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bad actors can just, you know, inject a fake number into the SIF header.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like writing a fake return address on an envelope.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then they just fire it off before the carrier can even verify its actual origin.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like replacing a solid oak front door with a bead curtain.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like that analogy.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Great for airflow, but terrible for security.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So carriers were suddenly facing these decentralized global bad actors firing
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: millions of these spoofed packets.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It turned network defense into this impossible game of global whack-a-mole.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So because the carriers can't easily trace those packets back to the source,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: they end up using like these blunt heuristic analytics at the destination.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, things like call velocity and volume.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why legitimate businesses get caught in the crossfire.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The filters are basically just guessing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if the hospital sends out a batch of automated appointment reminders,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: they hit a volume threshold.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then the carrier's analytics just slap a spam likely label on it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The business costs for that are immediate and honestly pretty severe.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can imagine.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: No one answers.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: No one answers.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Answer rates plummet.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Staff waste hours calling people back and brand equity,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: which is literally consumer trust, just evaporates.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Which creates this massive two-way trust deficit, doesn't it?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like outbound, the business can't mathematically prove they aren't a spammer.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And inbound,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: when you finally call them back,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: the business has to use all this device metadata and voice biometrics just
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: to prove you aren't an AI deepfake.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's exhausting.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So how is the telecom industry trying to fix the outbound side?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they introduced the stir-shake-in protocol.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of just hoping the SIP header is accurate,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: it uses public key cryptography to sign the call metadata at the origin.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like sealing the caller ID in a tamper-proof digital envelope.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It passes an A-grade trust score through the network.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, but if that uses cryptographic signatures,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: why is my phone still blowing up with spam likely messages?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: The math works, so...
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because the interoperability is a total mess.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: These systems aren't uniform globally,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes they don't even work across competing carriers in the same country.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so the signature gets lost in transit.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: A clean signed number might get stripped of its signature as it passes through
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: a legacy router, so it arrives at your phone looking completely unverified.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Businesses have to continuously monitor their numbers just to keep them clean.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds incredibly frustrating for premium brands.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: They must be looking for ways to bypass the carrier networks entirely
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: to guarantee calls get answered.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're using these out-of-band pre-call APIs for branded calling.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: A trusted provider securely passes a vetted brand logo directly
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: to your mobile screen over the internet.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so it just completely sidesteps the carrier's in-network signaling,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: like skipping the bouncer at the door because the club owner texted your photo to
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: the bartender inside.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: You bypass the flawed filtering entirely.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it means businesses are deploying massive amounts of cryptography and APIs just
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: to get a human to say hello.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Your attention and trust really have become the most expensive currency
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: in telecommunications right now.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Without a doubt.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It makes you wonder, soon we might not answer the phone at all.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: As AI gets more advanced,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: what happens to trust when your personal AI agent screens your calls
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: and just negotiates with the business's AI agent?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: We might just leave human voices out of the equation entirely.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Next time you stare at that spam-likely notification,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: just remember,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: The beat curtain is still blowing in the wind,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: but the cryptographic bouncers are finally starting to check IDs.