news & events

Robocall scams have exploded worldwide during the past several years. Communications service providers (CSPs) and their partners are implementing several technical approaches to identify and block robocalls, such as identifying known robocalling origination points, recognizing compromised number ranges or detecting floods of calls to certain number ranges from a small number of origination points. In this article, analyst Ed Finegold with TM Forum takes a closer look at expert advice for combating the growing robocall problem, including iconectiv’s CTO Chris Drake.

In many forms of digital-era fraud, thieves steal digital identities to pose as legitimate customers and commit crimes like bank account takeover and mobile subscription fraud. Zenkey, a joint communications service provider (CSP) effort providing an alternative to digital identity brokerages, effectively tokenizes the subscriber information operators already hold to protect customers from digital identity theft. In this article from TMForum, Ed Finegold takes a closer look at the potential opportunity for CSPs as digital identity brokers, including an expert perspective from iconectiv’s CTO Chris Drake.

The future of messaging frameworks and protocols, beginning with SMS, MMS, and now RCS, lies in the hands of industry collaboration within the solution provider ecosystem. Our CTO Chris Drake joins Keith Lampron, Associate Director of Core Messaging Product Management at Verizon Wireless and Chris Nicoll, Principal Analyst at ACG Research on this executive webinar to share what to expect from RCS for enterprises, consumers and operators.

With increases in illegal robocalls, mobile operators have been challenged with maintaining consumer trust as they stop answering calls from unknown numbers. SHAKEN/STIR is the telecom industry’s first step toward reviving trust in telephony and sets the vital framework for how telecoms can deliver identity verification information for enterprises from originating to terminating provider. This briefing on SHAKEN/STIR is available featuring the analysis of two technology leaders at iconectiv, Chris Drake and Gary Richenaker.

Fraudsters and scammers have been preying on the coronavirus pandemic since March, often asking for money, personal information and claiming to provide health information related to the pandemic. iconectiv, the policy administrator for the FCC-backed initiative SHAKEN aimed at mitigating illegal robocalls, has warned that fraudulent calls may increase in the coming weeks as more government stimulus checks hit the bank accounts of tens of millions of Americans.

In this video interview, Chief Technology Officer, Chris Drake and Jeremy Cowan of VanillaPlus tackle the tricky subject of trust. With people fatigued by spam calls and text messages and businesses trying unsuccessfully to legitimately communicate with the consumer, how can Telcos restore confidence in communications?

Throughout the nearly four decades Richard Jacowleff has spent in the telecom industry, he’s witnessed and been a part of extraordinary changes, from the breakup of AT&T in 1983 to the ubiquitous use of smartphones. Rising through the ranks from technician to director, executive director, vice president and now president and CEO of iconectiv, he’s always considered himself a builder rather than a manager. Whether putting together brilliant teams or technology solutions, it is a matter of wanting to improve things by doing better and inspiring others to do the same.