Introduction
Today, many people feel that the only calls they receive are spam calls. According to a survey carried out by Singh (2020), half of the respondents indicated that they received at least one spam call every day, while one-third noted that such calls occur at least twice a day. As a matter of fact, “about 9% of all spam calls that people received in the U.S. were dialed by telecom networks” (Singh, 2020). In essence, spam calls are on the rise due to cheaper and easier use of Voice-Over IP, multiple providers, and Ajit Pai’s decision to oppose the Obama Era Rule.
Discussion
Firstly, Voice-Over IP (VoIP) contributes to the increase in spam calls. VOIP is a type of call that is made through the web as opposed to the traditional telephone line. These types of calls are cheaper and easier to use – this has attracted many people to use them. As elucidated in Nazih et al.’s (2020) research, spammers use VoIP to place phone calls over the internet and imitate a different phone number. Initially, spam callers used to have a specific and fixed number which made it easier for recipients to block. Today, the advancement in technology has helped them develop the ability to imitate any phone number. The most commonly used option is neighboring spam which targets the area code and three digits of a phone number – this increases the likelihood for the recipient to answer.
Secondly, spam calls are on the rise due to the evolution of the provider’s system. In the past, only one company was responsible for providing service to both the caller and the recipient for a single call. However, today, a single call tends to go through several providers which helps lower the costs associated with communication. While this is the case, multiple providers make it difficult to vet for scams (Dutwin et al., 2018). This is an issue that has been in existence for several years now and the FCC commission admits it has been unable to solve.
Lastly, some critics attribute the rise of spam calls to Ajit Pai, who opposed the Obama Era Rule which aimed at limiting robocalls. Their argument further hinges on the fact that he refused to appeal the court’s ruling to ensure mobile devices do not become unusable cesspools of unknown spammers (Walters, 2022). The rule ended up widening the definition of an autodialer to encompass any device that has the ability to robocalls even if they had not been modified to perform such a function. In fact, Pai publicly celebrated the court’s decision arguing that the decision was another milestone and a clear proof of how prior Federal Communication Commission (FCC)’s disregarded the law and regulatory overreach (Walters, 2022). Although the U.S. Court of Appeal struck down the 2015 rule in 2018, critics maintain that loopholes had already been created (Walters, 2022). On the contrary, some argue that it is hard to connect the 2015 ruling to the fact that spam callers are on the increase (Walters, 2022). They claim that the ruling was helpful mainly to commercial institutions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the number of spam calls has been on the rise in the recent past. As a matter of fact, many people end up receiving at least one spam call every day. As evidenced above, this of calls has been increasing partly due to the cheaper and easier use of VoIP – it allows spammers to place phone calls over the internet which imitate a different number.
Similarly, the fact there are multiple scholars makes it hard to vet spam. In general, there is much that needs to be done to curb the rising number of spam calls.
References
Dutwin, D., Blum, M., Copeland, K., Fienberg, H., Jackson, C., Jodts, E., & Vrudhula, S. (2018). Spam flagging and call blocking and its impact on survey research. American Association For Public Opinion Research, 9(6), 18-27. Web.
Nazih, W., Elkilani, W. S., Dhahri, H., & Abdelkader, T. (2020). Survey of countering DoS/DDoS attacks on SIP based VoIP networks. Electronics, 9(11), 18-27. Web.
Singh, M. (2020). Spam calls grew 18% this year despite the global pandemic. Techcrunch. Web.
Walters, P. (2022). A public good: Can government really save the press? Journalism, 23(8), 645-662. Web.