Powering a Global Stand Against Robocalls: ATIS and iconectiv Collaborate with Bandwidth and Microsoft to Lead Industry-Wide Initiative

ATIS, iconectiv Trial Industry Robocall Initiative With Bandwidth, Microsoft to Mitigate Unwanted Robocalls Globally

iconectiv is leading the global effort to combat unwanted robocalls by deploying cross-border call authentication through the SHAKEN protocol, ensuring that legitimate calls are securely authenticated and protected worldwide.

August 15, 2024 — Washington, DC and Bridgewater, NJ.  ATIS and iconectiv today announced a new robocall mitigation initiative to combat unwanted robocalls and fraudulent scam calls on a global basis. As founding members of the initiative, Bandwidth and Microsoft will be the first companies to trial the initiative and will be able to deploy the Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN) protocol for cross-border authentication, particularly important for calls that originate or terminate in countries that have not deployed it nationally. 

Developed by ATIS and the SIP Forum, the SHAKEN protocol has been effective in helping North American service providers identify and inform their customers of caller ID spoofing since 2019.

Nonetheless, difficulties addressing cross-border calling have been the primary challenge that policymakers and service providers face when tackling the menace of unwanted calls and fraudulent scam calls.  Existing approaches are not fully effective. In some cases, they harm legitimate voice traffic. Deploying SHAKEN across borders, particularly in conjunction with traceback commitments, can significantly improve these efforts by allowing all legitimate service providers to exchange authenticated traffic end to end and across international borders, even when there is no national SHAKEN framework in their countries.  

Deploying cross border SHAKEN is currently undergoing rigorous testing to ensure end-to-end interoperability. In partnership with ATIS, iconectiv will act as the Policy Administrator and Certification Authority for the Cross Border Call Authentication initiative. 

“As the organization that brought the industry together to develop SHAKEN and set it into action in North America, ATIS is pleased to be part of international efforts to help ensure SHAKEN’s benefits can be realized globally,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller. 

“Illegal robocalling and phone scams are a global epidemic that knows no borders and our strongest defense, as an industry, is to band together to align on a framework that separates legitimate callers and their CallerIDs from the illegal ones,” said Peter Ford, executive vice president, iconectiv. “Cross Border Call Authentication is a critical step forward in stemming this widespread misuse of communication networks and protecting legitimate businesses who rely on voice calls to engage with their customers worldwide.

“We've seen the benefits of STIR/SHAKEN as a mechanism to authenticate callers at the source to better identify and flag malicious calls -- but it is only available in a small number of countries today,” said Scott Mullen, Bandwidth’s Chief Technology Officer. “The Cross Border Call Authentication initiative will allow Bandwidth to advance the value of STIR/SHAKEN with our partners globally and ultimately to the benefit of all consumers and the entire industry more broadly.”

“The Cross Border Call Authentication initiative is the first consortium of its type to try to address and thwart scams and unwanted robocalls through STIR/SHAKEN on a global level instead of relying solely on per-country implementations.” said Mahendra Sekaran, Vice President, Microsoft Teams Engineering.  “We feel that this initiative will help users and organizations feel more confident in conducting the voice communications that are so critical to their business.”

Cross Border Call Authentication is open to all service providers, globally. To ensure the integrity of the global ecosystem, participating service providers will be vetted to ensure legitimacy, using objective criteria defined by the Cross Border Call Authentication Governance Authority. Interested service providers are encouraged to join this initiative. 

For more information visit https://iconectiv.com/contact or email marcom@iconectiv.com.