As it had promised earlier this week, T-Mobile held another Un-carrier Next event today. During the event, CEO Mike Sievert announced a couple of new features for T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Sprint customers, including ScamShield and proxy numbers.
ScamShield encompasses a number of capabilities and it builds upon the STIR/SHAKEN protocols that also power the Caller Verified feature it introduced last year. Part of this is free CallerID for everyone, which will let you see the name of whoever is calling you, even if they"re not in your contacts, in addition to verifying the phone number like before. There"s also ScamID, which will include an additional warning when an incoming call is likely to be a scam. Finally, there"s ScamBlock, which takes that ScamID information and blocks the calls outright, which is optional if you want to enable it. For T-Mobile customers, this can be done through the Scam Shield app coming July 24, while Sprint customers will have an upgraded Call Screener app to offer the same features. You can also enable Scam Block right now by dialing #662#.
Then there"s T-Mobile Proxy, which lets customers get a second phone number that they can use to sign up for online services, for example, so their main personal number isn"t compromised. This number will have its own space for messages and voicemail, and T-Mobile calls it a "spam folder" for your phone. This feature is also available at no additional cost in the T-Mobile DIGITS app, but only for Magenta, Magenta for Business, and Essentials plans on T-Mobile. If your personal number is already getting too many scam calls, you can also now get a new number and a "clean slate" for free.
Finally, T-Mobile is partnering with McAfee to launch Be ID Aware, a subscription service that will let you know if your phone number has surfaced on the dark web or been compromised in a data breach. The service is launching with a free 12-month subscription for T-Mobile and Sprint customers, but you"ll have to sign up for it before August 31.
As a side note, T-Mobile"s CEO also announced that T-Mobile and Sprint are merging their brand operations on August 2, meaning T-Mobile will be the single brand used for the company"s retail offerings, and most Sprint stores will become T-Mobile stores. This had been mentioned in an investor meeting earlier in the year.