SIP Forum Virtual Summit Stats - See Where You Stack Up!
STIR/SHAKEN implementation is an urgent issue. With less than a year to the FCC's June 30, 2021 deadline, it’s time to act. Carriers are concerned that they won’t be able to meet that date, and enterprises are worried that carriers won’t be able to fully attest their calls once STIR/SHAKEN is in place. That means some legitimate calls might be marked as spam or blocked. Throw in a pandemic, and that’s a recipe for more disaster. The need for trusted connections is more urgent than ever.
On June 23, we hosted a Super Session at the 2020 SIP FORUM STIR/SHAKEN Virtual Summit aimed at identifying the concerns of carriers and enterprises, and exploring options.
If you missed the panel, you can view the video and presentation here—and if you were there, you may remember that we conducted several attendee surveys Here’s what we learned, and what the responses say about the state of the industry.
Delivering more than expected.
Jimmy Garvert, senior vice president and general manager of the communications solutions division at Neustar kicked off our Super Session. While he’s aware that the industry is focused on the mandate—in his view, this is one of the biggest changes we’ve seen in this space in a long time, and he suggests that we start thinking bigger. His challenge: how we can collectively deliver more than expected?
Carriers that have implemented STIR/SHAKEN represents close to 70% of active phone numbers. but doesn’t mean that 70% of calls are included yet. Beyond regulatory compliance, the substantive issues carriers are looking at include attestation, certification delegation, and the customer experience. The latter will be critical to the wider goal of restoring trust in the phone system.
Enterprises, for instance, need to trust that the legitimate calls they make will receive the highest attestation level, so they can reach customers. Consumers, on the other hand, will need to know what calls to trust, so they can safely answer.
Solutions to these challenges—such as certificate delegation and Telephone Number databases—are within our grasp. But the consensus at the summit seemed to be how implementation plays out will likely be determined by the market.
Super Session by the Numbers.
We were excited to see that a whopping 70% of those that registered for our three-and-a-half hour Super Session did in fact attend, for a total of 318 attendants. That’s approximately one third of those who registered for the week-long STIR/SHAKEN virtual summit, which is great participation.Thank you to all attendees! Here’s a breakout:
- Almost 170 unique organizations attended our Super Session
- Close to 50% were carriers
- 22% of attendees were from outside the U.S.
- Equipment/software providers comprised 19% of attendees
- Most attendees showed at a moderate level of interest or better over the 3.5 hour(!) session, and 118 attendees showed a high or very high level of interest based on the GoToWebinar Interest Rating
If you’ve ever sat for a meeting that ran over three hours, you’ll know that sustaining any level of interest is no small feat.
When asked “What is the MOST IMPORTANT driver to your organization for implementing call authentication?” respondents said:
- Regulatory compliance, with 46% of respondents
- 22% of respondents said customer growth/experience
- 19% said customer retention/care
- 14% responded risk and security
While compliance remains the biggest driver (46%) to implementing call authentication, to Jimmy’s point, customer experience is gaining traction.
Then we asked how important it is to enterprises to have outbound calls obtain “A” or full attestation.
Chiefly stakeholders are most concerned that upcoming STIR/SHAKEN implementation will end up reducing the likelihood that their outbound enterprise calls will be answered due to call alerts or blocking In fact:
- 86% said that it was either very important or urgently important for them to receive full attestation from their carriers under STIR/SHAKEN
- 11% said it was somewhat important
- 2% said it’s not important at all
STIR/SHAKEN implementation is a complex, multi-step process and resolving the challenges such as the attestation gap are still being worked out. It will require industry-wide collaboration to get it right –and robocalls are not going away until we do. Neustar is here to help guide enterprises and carriers with our expertise, services, and solutions.
Wherever you are in the STIR/SHAKEN process, you may find this CSP Checklist for Implementing STIR/SHAKEN useful. You can also visit our Trusted Call Resource Center. We’re here to help, so contact us today.