news & events

Robocalling is a global epidemic that affects every corner of the world. In 2020, North America and Europe received a total of 157.4 billion robocalls. This year, American consumers alone have received nearly 22 billion in the first five months, with this number expected to reach more than 52 billion by the end of the year. In this Q&A with Vanilla Plus, iconectiv’s Chief Product Officer Michael O’Brien discusses the multiple measures being taken to tackle the global spread of robocalls and other frauds.

Legitimate businesses that rely on voice calls to reach their customers got a much-needed boost this week following the announcement by the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) that they are expanding how trusted caller information can be established. This APNews.com article discusses how this policy change gives voice service providers that plan to use Delegate Certificates when implementing a STIR/SHAKEN framework the opportunity to have business customers register their telephone numbers with Registered Caller—the nation’s industry-backed centralized telephone number registry.

Spam and illegal robocalls have caused consumers to stop answering calls from numbers they don’t recognize. This poses a significant challenge for legitimate businesses trying to reach consumers by phone with important or timely updates and information. This Yahoo! Finance article discusses the latest effort to combat robocalls through the expansion of the SHAKEN protocol, allowing businesses an opportunity to register their numbers through the industry-backed program, Registered Caller. This move is intended to help business connect with customers and restore consumer confidence in consumer calls.

Characterized as a major breakthrough in the conflict with illegal robocalls, the Secure Telephone Identity Governance Authority (STI-GA) announced two policy changes in the SHAKEN ecosystem. The set of first policy changes will allow delegate certificates to be used by third-party callers as well as companies originating calls from toll-free numbers to also provide SHAKEN authentication. The second set of policy changes are designed to authorize Responsible Organizations (Resp Orgs) to access Service Provider Code tokens.

Aiming to boost customer confidence in picking up phone calls from unknown numbers, this Fierce Wireless article discusses how T-Mobile and partners completed a wireless call that used authenticated caller ID and showed details like company branding to provide more information about who was calling and why. The call, which the partners believe to be a first, was completed in partnership with iconectiv, First Orion, CTIA, Everbridge, NetNumber, Numeracle, and Twilio.

Learn how existing call-blocking analytics can be enhanced with TruNumber Protect to identify calls from high-risk, unallocated number ranges and suspicious premium-rate numbers before they reach customers in this exclusive webinar in partnership with CCA.

T-Mobile US recently announced it has completed what it says is the first wireless call to combine authenticated Caller ID and Rich Call Data (RCD), powered by the STIR/SHAKEN framework and protocols to protect consumers from scammers. The call was performed with a premier group of tech firms, messaging industry stakeholders and voice service providers including iconectiv, First Orion, CTIA, Everbridge, NetNumber, Numeracle, and Twilio. When widely used, RCD will empower consumers with more call information, so they can make the right choices in the moment, stay safe from spam and scammers, and still get important calls.