Why Telephone Number Accuracy Is Critical in the Digital Era
A service provider’s entire business is underpinned by telephone numbers. Provisioning and activation, billing, point-of-sale, customer service, 911 systems, and caller authentication all depend on telephone number accuracy. However, our research shows that up to 30 percent of service provider’s telephone number inventories are typically outdated or inaccurate. This is due in part to the fact that many providers still manage their inventories manually.
The manual processes of yesterday no longer fit into today’s digital world. The availability and promise of new technological innovations such as 5G, IoT, VoIP, and eSIMs are transforming CSPs’ businesses and creating new ways for consumers and enterprises to connect.
Carriers must consolidate their disparate telephone number databases and automate their outdated and error-prone manual processes to ensure they have the data integrity to manage their changing inventories.
New technologies drive the need for a unified solution.
As new 5G networks are launched, it’s expected that billions of newly connected devices, ranging from cars to IoT sensors, will put more demand on telephone number repositories. So much so, that in Japan, the country’s communications ministry is preparing for a surge in demand for new phone numbers by expanding the maximum number of digits from 11 to 14, a change that will enable mobile carriers to offer 10 billion new numbers.
5G, along with analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, is setting the stage for exciting new operational and service opportunities, enabling service providers to offer a range of location and context-aware services across millions of endpoints.
A single source of truth.
It’s not just the scale of phone numbers that needs to be managed in the digital era. Telephone number inventory platforms will need to handle new data attributes associated with a telephone number, such as eSIMs. The ability to track and share information using the telephone number through a unified solution will ensure the data integrity of all telephone numbers, including fixed, mobile and VoIP.
As service providers transform their businesses to add new digital services, technologies, and automation, they need one single source of truth. The phone number remains that key identifier.
And, as providers upgrade their networks to offer new revenue-generating value-added services to customers, managing telephone numbers will be more critical than ever. Proactive carriers will take this opportunity to automate outdated systems that improve the customer experience and speed service monetization.
Learn more here about how Neustar can help you consolidate your telephone number inventories, automate your manual processes, and create new services. Or contact us directly.