iconectiv, the authoritative partner of the communications industry, has signed the agreement to serve as U.S. Secure Telephone Identity Policy Administrator (STI-PA) for the FCC-endorsed ATIS-SIP Forum SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) — the industry-wide solution to mitigate illegal robocalls and help consumers once again trust their calling number displayed on their caller ID.

Published ahead of the industry’s Open Networking Summit next month in Antwerp, Belgium, the latest release of international specifications to help build future software-led mobile networks includes a key contribution from iconectiv®, a company which provides information services that help service providers operate and manage their communications networks globally.

The specifications have been published by the LF Networking’s Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) to help combine and drive industry progress toward delivering new services quickly and cost-efficiently using network functions virtualization (NFV) over software-defined mobile networks within an open source framework.

Mobile phone numbers now rival social security and driver license numbers as the personal identifier that consumers use to register for products and services. That ubiquity makes mobile numbers an attractive and powerful tool for identity thieves, who stole $14.7 billion in 2018 from 14.4 million U.S. consumers.

Now, with the introduction of PortData Validate from iconectiv, financial institutions, healthcare providers and other authorized businesses can leverage telephone number porting data as part of their assessment when verifying a customer’s identity, approving a transaction or disclosing information.

iconectiv will discuss the industry’s approach to stop illegal robocalls at Twilio’s conference.

Implementation of STIR/SHAKEN is a critical mission in the fight against illegal robocalls and caller ID spoofing. The Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) manages the rollout of this solution and is seeking interest from organizations that would like to serve as STI Certificate Authorities (CAs).

The Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA), operating under the auspices of ATIS, announced the selection of iconectiv as the U.S. STI Policy Administrator (STI-PA), a critical role in industry efforts to mitigate illegal robocalling. As the STI-PA, iconectiv will apply and enforce the rules as defined by the STI-GA to operationalize the SHAKEN framework.

With this selection, the STI-GA has completed the initial establishment of the STI-GA ecosystem as contemplated by the FCC’s North American Numbering Council (NANC) Call Authentication Trust Anchor Working Group.