Attorney General Tong Begins Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, Announces Investigation of Major Service Providers Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless

Press Releases

12/03/2025

Attorney General Tong Begins Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, Announces Investigation of Major Service Providers Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless

(Hartford, CT) – Today, Attorney General William Tong announced Phase 2 of Operation Robocall Roundup, expanding the crackdown on illegal robocalls to include four of the largest voice providers in the country. As part of an ongoing investigation, the bipartisan Anti-Robocall Multistate Litigation Task Force has directed Inteliquent, Bandwidth, Lumen, and Peerless to stop transmitting suspected illegal robocalls across their networks.

“Robocalls are an obnoxious nuisance and a prime gateway for scammers. In coordination with attorneys general across the country, we’re escalating our crack down on the fraud facilitators transmitting these illegal robocalls across their networks. Our first phase is already delivering results and blocking bad actors from transmitting calls to the United States. If you receive a call or a text from someone you do not recognize, do not answer, do not engage, and report it to us,” said Attorney General Tong.

Help bolster investigations in Connecticut by reporting your robocalls to www.ct.gov/agcomplaints. Connecticut’s website complaint intake is enabled to gather robocall-specific complaint data.

In August, Attorney General Tong sent warning letters to 37 smaller voice providers that were allowing suspected illegal robocalls onto the U.S. telephone network. This next phase targets companies with far larger footprints in the U.S. telecom ecosystem. The four companies are continuing to transmit hundreds of thousands - and in some cases, millions - of suspected illegal robocalls.

Scope of Suspected Illegal Robocall Activity

Provider	Total Traceback Notices (since 2019)	Estimated Amazon/Apple Imposter Robocalls (3-year period)	Estimated SSA/IRS Imposter Robocalls (3–4-year period)
Inteliquent	9,712	450 million	1.425 billion
Bandwidth	3,060	162.7 million	301 million
Peerless	5,662	210.7 million	585.3 million
Lumen	7,265	261.5 million	886.2 million

The above chart shows the scale of suspected illegal robocall activity linked to each company. The first column reflects how many traceback notices each company has received since 2019. A traceback notice is an official alert from industry investigators indicating that a company transmitted a call tied to a suspected illegal robocall campaign. The next two columns estimate the major scam categories – such as fake Amazon, Apple, Social Security, or IRS calls – that moved through each company’s network. Together, the data shows both the specific types of scams these companies helped transmit and the staggering volume of robocalls flowing across their systems.

As larger providers, these companies have a heightened responsibility to decline call traffic from known and repeat bad actors. Despite extensive industry traceback notices and years of documented warnings, these four providers continue to route suspected illegal robocalls onto the network and into American homes.

Phase 1 Has Already Delivered Results

After sending warning letters to 37 companies, the Task Force saw rapid, measurable changes:

• 13 companies were removed from the FCC’s Robocall Mitigation Database, meaning no provider in the United States may accept their call traffic.
• 19 companies stopped appearing in any traceback results, indicating they ceased routing suspected illegal robocalls.
• At least four providers terminated high-risk customer accounts identified as transmitting illegal traffic.

In 2022, 51 attorneys general joined forces to create the Anti-Robocall Litigation Task Force, which is led by North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. The Task Force investigates and takes legal action against companies responsible for significant volumes of illegal and fraudulent robocall traffic routed into and across the United States.

Twitter: @AGWilliamTong

Facebook: CT Attorney General

Media Contact:

Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov

Consumer Inquiries:

860-808-5318
attorney.general@ct.gov