FCC Moving Forward with Call Authentication

On 7 December 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked the North American Numbering Council (NANC) to provide advice on how the Trusted Anchor function should be defined and implemented in the pending STIR/SHAKEN call authentication system for Secure Telephone Identity.

They also asked the NANC to recommend a reasonable timeline for telecommunication service providers (TSPs) to deploy this call authentication system, including incentives or mandates that the FCC can put in place to ensure that the timeline is met.

A report from the NANC to the FCC is expected on 7 May 2018.

This is an important step in putting caller authentication in place so that TSPs can help customers regain trust in caller ID and avoid annoying, illegal robocalls.

Trusted Anchor Function

In the STIR/SHAKEN framework, the Trusted Anchor function includes:

  • Policy Administrator (PA) — the organization that runs the system
  • Governance Authority (GA) — a single entity that provides rules and standards to be followed by the PA and TSPs in using the system

The FCC letter mentions candidates for the GA role who have been suggested so far, including:

  • The FCC
  • The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS)
  • A working group of the NANC

In their letter, the FCC asked the NANC to comment on the following:

  • Process for selecting the GA
  • Relationship between the FCC and the GA if separate
  • Process for selecting the PA

TransNexus View

TransNexus has been watching the approach of STIR/SHAKEN implementation for quite some time, and we’re working hard to help our customers be ready. We’ve added STIR/SHAKEN capabilities to our SIP Analytics software, which is available on our ClearIP hosted platform in the cloud and our on-premises NexOSS system.

If you would like to learn more about how we’ve implemented STIR/SHAKEN into our software and arrange a free evaluation, please contact us today and we’ll be happy to help you.

Edit: a previous version of this post reported a report due date of 7 April 2018. This date has been changed to 7 May 2018.

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