Verizon will now offer paid spam call filter for free to all customers

A little over a year ago, Verizon rolled out a spam call filter service within its paid Call Filter upgrade. Today, the company announced that the Verizon spam call filter will soon be available to all wireless and wired customer for free.

The free Verizon spam call filter service will arrive sometime in March 2019, according to the company’s press release on the matter.

Call Filter — which was formerly known as Caller Name ID — uses a custom algorithm to determine the “spam level” of an incoming call. On your compatible smartphone, Verizon would present you with that caller’s determined risk level. Using this tool, the call recipient can have a vague idea of whether or not answering that call will be safe.

Verizon didn’t make it clear whether the new, free version of Call Filter will operate in the exact same fashion or if it will also carry the same brand name. However, it’s a good bet the company is merely shifting a paid service to operate at no cost to consumers, so it will likely be exactly the same — just free.

Verizon competitor and wireless disruptor T-Mobile rolled out similar services in 2017 to all of its postpaid customers called Spam ID and Spam Block. Those services are also free.

The press release on the matter also details how Verizon is fighting spam callers on the frontlines, so to speak, by supporting legislation to crack down on illegal spam callers and upgrading its network infrastructure to make it so fewer calls ever even make it to your smartphone.

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