The agency says the widespread adoption of STIR/SHAKEN will reduce the effectiveness of illegal spoofing, help law enforcement agencies identify bad actors and, most importantly, allow carriers to identify spammers before they ever call your phone. The FCC estimates fraudulent call schemes cost Americans approximately $10 billion every year. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai started pushing carriers to adopt the protocol in 2018. Congress also mandated the technology when it passed the TRACED Act last year.

While the regulatory requirement to support STIR/SHAKEN is a step in the right direction, it won’t magically solve the scourage of robocalls overnight. It’s not enough for carriers to merely implement the protocol on their own. They must also test that their implementation works with other networks. In other words, it’s not something your wireless provider can just turn on. Moreover, as a consumer, you also need a device that can display the “Caller Verified” notification when someone calls you. While most modern smartphones support the feature out of the box, other handsets will need to be updated.

Under the STIR/SHAKEN protocol, carriers verify that a call is legitimate (not coming from a spoofed number) before it reaches the recipient. In 2018, Pai urged carriers to implement the protocol by 2019. AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) have all implemented the tech in one way or another, but robocalls are still a major nuisance. According to the FCC, US consumers receive as many as 350,000 unwanted calls every three minutes.

“It’s clear that FCC action is needed to spur across-the-board deployment of this important technology,” Pai said in a statement. “There is no silver bullet when it comes to eradicating robocalls, but this is a critical shot at the target.”

The FCC has also empowered carriers to block robocalls be default, and several carriers and 50 state attorneys general are working on agreement to implement call-blocking tech, make anti-robocall tools free to consumers and label calls as legitimate or spam.

“We’re in an arms race with these scammers, and we’ve got to join forces as an industry to keep all wireless customers protected,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a press release.

T-Mobile is also expanding its Caller Verified feature to 23 smartphones. Soon, customers with more devices will see “Caller Verified” on their screens when a non-spoofed call arrives from a T-Mobile or Sprint number.

T-Mobile and Sprint are not the first carriers to use the STIR/SHAKEN standards or to team up to verify cross-network calls. AT&T, Comcast and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) offer the anti-robocall tool, and Comcast and AT&T verify calls between the two networks. The FCC has voted to allow carriers to block robocalls by default, so we may see more carriers adopt spam-blocking tech in the near future.

Under the new agreement, the carriers will implement call-blocking technology, make anti-robocall tools free to consumers and deploy a system that labels calls as legitimate or spam, The Washington Post reports. The companies also agree to aid investigations by law enforcement. The major players — AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) — are on board, as well as smaller carriers — Bandwidth, CenturyLink, Charter, Consolidated, Frontier, US Cellular and Windstream. Though, there’s no deadline for the companies to implement these measures.

Several of the companies already have their own tools. AT&T and Comcast use the STIR/SHAKEN protocol to verify calls between their networks, and AT&T and T-Mobile have a similar agreement. Verizon uses the same technology to offer a free spam filter to its customers. The FCC recently voted to allow carriers to block robocalls by default. This summer, the FTC cracked down on operations responsible for one billion robocalls, and a bipartisan bill to curb the spam calls passed Senate.

But rather than wait on regulations, the carriers and attorneys general are moving forward with this agreement. “We don’t want our efforts to be contingent on actions by Congress,” said Josh Stein, attorney general of North Carolina. He said the goal is to “catalyze” the industry to end robocalls and for carriers to take action “as soon as practical.”