The plague of illegal robocalls and malicious caller ID spoofing is not abating, making the fight against unwanted calls one of the top priorities for telecom operators around the world. In the hope of establishing a reliable authentication system that will help strengthen call-blocking services and unmask spoofed calls, an increasing number of carriers are implementing caller ID authentication using the STIR/SHAKEN set of standards.

According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), all originating and terminating voice service providers must complete the implementation of the STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited) and SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) framework to authenticate and verify caller ID information for IP-based voice calls by June 30, 2021.

In order to maintain the high standards of our services and in adherence with these regulations, the DIDWW team is working diligently to ensure the successful adoption of these procedures and the timely implementation of STIR/SHAKEN authentication in our network. With this technology, we will be able to create a SIP Identity Header, which includes information such as the date, time and the phone number involved in the originating call. This data will be processed when verifying the call number.

There are three levels of verification a company can achieve – full attestation, partial attestation and gateway attestation. DIDWW is aiming to achieve full attestation, which implies authenticating the calling party and determining that the caller is authorized to use the calling number.

Most probably, STIR/SHAKEN will not wipe out robocalls completely, but it will definitely help service providers and end users to identify these calls more easily. In addition, this verification system will also be useful in combating other types of telephone fraud, that have caused billions of dollars in losses to telecom operators and their customers.