How much e-crime will this prevent and at what cost?
First, huzzah! Great something is being done. Where are we going with this?
The last I heard there are a small number of scams coming from known locations. This new policy prevents an important vector for the initial contact by blocking entities from known bad areas that won't identify themselves from making robotic text messages and phone calls.
If the FCC does nothing further it will still have an important effect (on my sanity if nothing else), but I'm not sure how well blocking that important vector will be long-term when the internet is still available.
More could be done if we want to leverage carriers to enhance enforcement: tie a particular scam, "lonely hearts" for instance, to particular call / connect patterns such as point of origin, time, duration, frequency, etc. Follow up with a police visit instead of a disconnect notice.
If there is a will to really go after the crime there is a lot we can do now. I don't know that the majority of people would be comfortable with anything quite that Orwellian, and sometimes that just means it goes on quietly behind the scenes in that grey area where criminals don't get the rights they don't deserve. If you mostly guess right, people might not get too upset.
So again, I'm loving the first step and wondering what is next. This box wasn't delivered by a girl named Pandora was it?