New Study Finds AT&T is Best at Correctly Identifying Both Spam and Non-Spam Phone Calls

Test Analyzed the Top Four Major US Carriers on Spam Identification, Spam Error Rate, and Caller ID, Leveraging Phone Numbers from Several Public and Independent Sources of Consumer Complaints

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Hiya

Dec 13, 2018, 08:00 ET

SEATTLE, Dec. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The results of a new study by HarrisX, the market research specialist focused on telecommunications, were released today which tested how well the top four US carriers identify both spam and non-spam phone calls. The study tested the spam/caller identification services of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon using one Android-OS smartphone and one iOS smartphone per carrier. All phones were equipped and enabled with the highest tier of each carrier's available spam protection services. The study found AT&T Call Protect out-performed its competitors in correctly identifying spam and non-spam numbers.

As data and text message usage continues to rise, calling has become reserved for the most important conversations. Correctly identifying a call – whether it is unwanted or wanted - is critical so that you don't miss a job offer, a bid on the house you just put up for sale, or a call that your food delivery is waiting for you in the lobby.

Additionally, the results show:

AT&T catches the most spam calls: AT&T was the most accurate at identifying spam calls, correctly flagging them 58% of the time. Verizon was second at 54%. T-Mobile had 35%. Sprint had less than 1%.
AT&T has the lowest spam error rate: In this test, AT&T incorrectly flagged calls as spam only 6% of the time. T-Mobile and Verizon inaccurately tagged calls as spam 15% and 16% of the time, respectively. With less than 1% of spam calls caught, Sprint was deemed not relevant for this portion of the study.
AT&T has the most complete and accurate Caller ID information, at 80% of the time. Verizon's complete and accurate Caller ID information was 72%, T-Mobile's was 70% and Sprint's was 69%.

This study recognizes the importance of accurately identifying potentially unwanted calls and ensuring that non-spam numbers are not classified incorrectly.

The full HarrisX study can be found here.

Methodology
The study was conducted by HarrisX and Hiya to test the spam filtering and caller ID capabilities of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon using one Android-OS smartphone and one iOS smartphone per carrier. All phones were equipped and enabled with the highest tier of each carriers' available spam protection and caller ID services. The tests for spam identification, spam error rate and caller ID featured 500, 450 and 415 calls, respectively, to each of the eight test devices, resulting in a total of 10,920 calls made in a four-day period. HarrisX leveraged phone numbers from public and independent sources of consumer complaints: the FCC, the FTC, Stopting.us, and Whocalls. For spam error rate, the study used phone numbers that were not spam at the time of testing, but had a history of misclassification as spam as identified by at least one spam protection service provider. A Power Analysis was conducted to determine the overall number of calls needed to detect statistically significant differences between carriers. The number of calls placed for each of the three test cases was determined by the availability of phone numbers within each case. The criteria for phone number selection took into account the recentness of spam complaints against them, ranging from within two days to two months of the testing period. Using an Interactive Voice Response platform, calls from a single number to each phone occurred within one minute of each other to avoid bias resulting from one carrier already identifying a number as spam.

About HarrisX
HarrisX is a Tech Media and Telecom Market Research Consultancy which is part of the Stagwell Group of companies. HarrisX was formed through the acquisition of Telecom Research Assets from Nielsen and has since augmented those assets with new technology based solutions and analytics. HarrisX works with most of the major wireless carriers, OEMs, MSO, Technology and OTT players. HarrisX's research suite includes Syndicated Trackers and Telemetry Data, Retail Effectiveness and Custom Research solutions. For more information, please visit www.harrisx.com.

About Hiya
Hiya is revolutionizing the way people make and receive phone calls. With a mission to provide a better phone experience, Hiya Caller and Business Profiles provide users with important context, giving them the right information at the right time. Through analysis of more than 10 billion calls per month, Hiya protects tens of millions of users from unwanted robo and spam calls globally.

SOURCE Hiya