Spam and robocalls have done severe damage to consumer confidence in telecommunications in recent years. Three-quarters of individuals won’t answer the phone if they don’t recognize the caller ID. A reasonable precaution when you consider that telephone fraud accounts for billions of dollars of lost money every year. Congress passed the Traced Act for providers and the TCPA act for businesses to help restore consumer confidence in telecommunications. Still, it pressures companies to maintain complicated STIR/SHAKEN compliance to stay operational.

Understanding STIR/SHAKEN

STIR/SHAKEN are two standards of authentication developed by different enterprises to address unique aspects of call security in specific situations.

• STIR: Secure Telephone Identity Revisited: a technical standard developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force to certify the identity of originating calls.
• SHAKEN: Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENS: implements STIR in IP-based service providers, developed by the Alliance of Telecommunications Industry Solutions.

Together, these two innovations will help address spoof, spam, and robocalls in the United States and are essential for your business to meet the TCPA Act requirements.

It’s crucial to achieve TCPA Act compliance soon.

The deadline for businesses to meet new regulations outlined in the TCPA Act was June 30. Meaning the regulatory bodies are now enforcing requirements. There are repercussions for not validating attaching SHAKEN tokens to outgoing calls.

For one, caller ID may have warnings attached, such as “suspected spam,” encouraging call recipients to view the calls with suspicion and not pick up. Some calls may not go through at all. Both these effects will cause severe disruption to your business.

The easiest way for your business to meet compliance is through an authorized certificate provider who can implement STIR/SHAKEN without hassle to you and ensure your continued adherence.

Every outbound call must have validated ANIs.

Call centers in the United States are now required to have validated ANIs with attached SHAKEN tokens to make sure outbound calls get to their destinations. Verified numbers prevent scammers from “spoofing” a number to make it seem like a neighbor is calling. The STIR/SHAKEN tokens insert into the SIP headers, letting the call recipient know the caller is certified.

To get the validated ANIs and tokens for SIP headers, partner your business with an authorized national provider like Prescott-Martini. We’ll make sure you do everything you need to meet compliance without disrupting the workflow of your business.

Prescott-Martini provides three levels of tokens for SIP headers.

Every business has unique requirements under the Traced Act. Rather than devoting your valuable time to understanding the still-developing complexities of the new regulations, you can outsource the technical aspects to a service provider.

We issue Attestation A, B, and C tokens. The correct attestation for your business depends on where your calls begin and end. Attestation A is for calls that originate and terminate on your network; B is when calls begin on your network and end on another; C is the most suspect attestation for calls originating and terminating off-network.

Regardless of your unique situation, our team will help you find the services and certificates to stay operational with no stress or hassle.

Prescott-Martini is an authorized national service provider helping businesses with STIR/SHAKEN compliance.

Our team has over 150 years of combined experience in the telecommunications industry. We’re one of a few authorized providers of digital certificates to help businesses comply with the FCC’s TCPA Act. We go beyond SHAKEN tokens to offer our technical expertise to connect companies with the technology that supports the full scope of their business while adhering to federal regulations.

If you’re concerned with what you need to do to meet STIR/SHAKEN compliance, the team at Prescott-Martini can help. Fill out our easy online form to make sure your business stays ahead of the regulations.