CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Phone carriers may soon be forced to stop the annoying and endless stream of robocalls.

• The TRACED Act would give the FCC more latitude in penalizing robocallers
• Call carriers make money off the volume of robocalls
• There were nearly 48 billion robocalls last year

Senator Thom Tillis is co-sponsoring the TRACED Act. It would give the FCC more latitude in penalizing robocallers, create a federal group to find ways to deter and prosecute robocall scams, and require call providers to use authentication technology to stop robocalls before they reach people’s phones.

RELATED: Robocalls Top 3 Billion in March 2018

With the money call carriers make off the volume of robocalls, it’s something experts say the industry has been reluctant to try and stop.

“[Providers] have the technology to deal with it. They’ve had the technology to deal with it, but they haven’t had the economic incentive to do anything about it,” president of the Better Business Bureau of the Southern Piedmont Tom Bartholomy said.

RELATED: Rep. Foxx Renews Push to Restrict Political Robocalls Through the 'Do Not Call' Registry

Last year, there were nearly 48 billion robocalls with 37 percent of those calls being scams, according to You Mail’s Robocall Index.