Telecom Regulatory Updates

These regulatory changes are industry wide so businesses will need to register their phone numbers for the business profile to obtain a trust score for both STIR/SHAKEN and A2P. For A2P messaging, there are additional steps that are needed to register your Brand and campaign/use case (additional fees will apply) which the carriers will need to approve. Campaign approval can take up to 48 hours to 78 hours. With these changes CTM has put together a list of the most frequent massage templates in order to help facilitate the process for you. The A2P Message templates can be found at [link]

With these industry changes, part of the process is to implement an attestation trust score so the underlying carrier can verify the calls and SMS outbound traffic from companies is not spam, robocalls, or fraudulent.

Normally the Attestation Trust Scores will be delivered within 48 to 78 hours

Business attestation scoring is based on Business Type, longevity, address, Tax ID or DUNS number. Note: the longer a company is in business and once registered the score could go up according to the carriers.

No fee is involved for initial registration of your business profile.

Yes, by paying a fee to a 3rd party verification provider they can do an independent check and provide you a Trust Score. The fee normally runs anywhere from $40.00 to $55.00.

Yes, You will need to register the phone number for both STIR/SHAKEN and if you are using A2P messaging you will need to add your Brand, campaign type, and a sample message which will be submitted to the carrier for approval.

??? (Rick to verify the process)

SHAKEN is an acronym standing for Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs. SHAKEN is a software based verification process designed to significantly reduce robocalls as well as ensuring caller ID displays are valid protecting consumers. The FCC’s recent report states that unwanted calls are their number one consumer complaint. Caller ID spoofing leads to fraud.

Yes, SHAKEN was created by the task force IP-NNI working for ATIS-SIP Forum. IP-NNI stands for “Internet Protocol – Network to Network Interface”. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) formed the working group STIR (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited) to develop policies for carriers. STIR in turn created SHAKEN which is why it is typically referred to as STIR/SHAKEN.

Based on a business profile created by the company there are multiple factors that drive an attestation trust score. Trust scores are derived from the longevity of the business, tax ID or DUNS number, physical address, and verified company contacts. Based on the attestation trust score, calls that are being initiated by a company and delivered to the carrier’s consumer phone, validation will be provided in the following (e.g. Spam, Scam Likely, or “valid company name” ).

Beginning June 30, 2021 STIR-SHAKEN initiative will be implemented by United States telecommunications providers. This will enhance consumer confidence and trust when accepting calls.

That will depend on your provider, and telephone manufacturer as to what caller ID display will show (e.g. Spam, Scam Likely, or “valid company name” ).

At this time, Call Tracking Metrics is not aware of any additional fees to consumers. However, the industry is still defining guidelines. Agencies may incur fees when challenging their attestation trust score.

STIR/SHAKEN is a US based initiative. However, Canada will most likely follow suit.

Yes, the business attestation trust score generated from these calls will be vetted to ensure validity of the company’s identity.

At this time carriers are still defining rules and attestation criteria. There is no clear plan for calls with low attestation scores. However, it is possible that low attestation scored calls will not be delivered. (Rick to verify this information)

Once an attestation trust score is established, over time businesses will gain additional credibility and their attestation score should increase with the carriers. However, low answers rates and short call duration calls (Under 60 seconds) could contribute to lowering a company’s attestation trust score causing calls not to be delivered.

Yes, if you have established a high attestation trust score the call should be delivered. The higher the attestation score, the more likely the call will be delivered to the end user. Should a company’s attestation score drop, they will most likely see a decline in call delivery.

The requirements needed for the A2P 10DLC service are as follows:

• Business profile creation/registration is the first step needed to identify who they are in order to send messages to the carrier networks .
• Businesses will then need to register their Band and the campaign type and provide a sample message (or two) that they are sending to their customers e.g. campaign types, marketing messages, account notifications, delivery notifications, etc.

Businesses will need to register their Campaigns for A2P 10DLC messaging in the US starting April 1, and no later than June 1, 2021 in order to send messages to AT&T customers.

Registration starts on April 1, 2021 in order for you to register you will need to create a Business Profile, Brands and Campaigns for A2P 10 DLC messaging. CTM will waive the associated fees until May 1 to provide customers time to register their A2P 10DLC campaigns (see below).

May 1, 2021:
Starting May 1, 2021 the AT&T pass through charges will go into effect for each message, per the campaign type. Some unregistered campaign types may have higher associated carrier pass through fees for Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Multi Media Service (MMS).

June 1, 2021:
Starting on June 1, 2021 is the registration deadline for AT&T. If campaigns are not registered, it is possible that AT&T will start blocking SMS and MMS for non-registered A2P 10DLC on their network.

We encourage customers that are currently sending messages to complete the registration process so your messages are delivered to the AT&T network.

It is currently believed that T-Mobile & Sprint are also going to require registration under the A2P 10DLC requirements. Once CTM gets further information regarding this we will update this document accordingly.

After you complete your A2P 10DLC Profile and register your campaigns Brand and a sample message (or Two) you will be provided a Trust Score of: High, Medium, or Low trust. Based on these Trust scores will determine the message throughput rate that the carrier provides you. So the higher the trust score the more messages you can send over the carriers network.

Once you complete the registration process of your Business Profile and register your Brand for A2P 10DLC campaign messaging the information it will be sent to a 3rd party at the center of this new registration system, also known as The Campaign Registry (TRC). TCR will use a reputation algorithm to review specific information about your company, and will assign a “Trust Score” that will determine your messaging throughput rate.

Since Trust Scores have three different levels (Low, Medium, to High) the score will be used along with your Campaign type to determine the total throughput rate for the Campaign type you wish to send.

A series of use cases make up a campaign type. Each use case represents the type of notification you would like to provide. So for example, if you would like to run a marketing campaign for coupon advertisements, that would fall under a marketing use case, or you wanted to send out appointment reminders to your customer, that would fall under the category of Reminders, A list of detail use cases are provided below. One note: each campaign (or Use Case) type needs to be registered.

Yes, the use case determines the type of message being sent and determines the carrier passthrough fee that will be charged for each message on AT&T network.

Use cases vary from reminders, 2 factor authentication, marketing messages, customer notifications, to public service announcements, and many more. A list is provided below for the Use Cases.

No. registration can be completed entirely through CTM. CTM and our partners have integrated directly with The Campaign Registry (TCR) to facilitate registration for customers.

No, if you already are using 10 digit phone numbers for sending messages there is no need to buy new numbers. However, you will need to register the existing phone numbers for each campaign type to ensure your message will be delivered.

In order to register your business profile, brands and campaigns, you will need to have information about each business and brand. The required information includes the business name, physical address, business type, Industry type, Tax ID or DUNS number, and provide 2 company contacts under your business profile.

Once your Brand(s) and Campaign(s) are approved, you will need to link each of your A2P Campaigns to the phone numbers you would like to use for that campaign. Any numbers that you add to that campaign will be automatically associated with the Campaign that you assigned to that messaging service.

Yes. but it is recommended that if high-volume MMS use cases are being used, utilizing a short code is still the best option.

These changes do not directly affect dedicated short codes along with Toll-Free numbers.

Effective June 1, 2021 Shared Short codes will be prohibited for use for high-volume messages.

There are fees for both sending A2P 10DLC messages along with campaign registration.

Brand registration fee: $4 one-time registration fee, per Brand.

There are several ways to contact our support team. If you are inside the CallTrackingMetrics platform, you may select the “Chat with Support” option. Additionally, you may reach our team by phone at (443) 432-2896 or create a support ticket by sending an email to info@calltrackingmetrics.com.

To help keep customers informed, we are sending regular emails related to these regulatory changes and proactively keeping this web page up-to-date. We recommend reviewing these resources often, as information is subject to change.