Business View Magazine | June 2020

39 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2020 i conect i v Drake: “Our origins are with the Bell system. We spun out as an independent software organization when the AT&T divestiture occurred and we were called Bell Communications Research, better known as Bellcore. It’s a venerable name in the industry. So, we hearken back to the Bell Labs days, and we have deep expertise in things you’d expect like numbering and network operations, but we are also very involved in fraud mitigation and identity management. We are very much focused on ensuring that all communications – voice, text, and data – are built on a strong, secure and trusted foundation.” BVM: How is your business adapting to the Covid-19 situation? Drake: “Actually, being involved in communications, and enabling people to confer with each other and engage remotely, has made us quite resilient to the situation. As a company, we’ve moved from basic audio conferencing to full video-based conferencing and collaboration. The largest system of databases of ported phone numbers in the world, the U.S. NPAC handles ownership changes near instantaneously for more than 850 million phone numbers moving between 1600 service providers and service bureaus. Today more than ever, there is a need and desire to restore confidence in voice communications and there are many players in the ecosystem helping make that happen – from service providers, to analytic engines, to regulators. Within that realm, iconectiv is squarely positioned as a neutral, trusted partner to help resolve this growing (and expensive) problem. To discover why, how, and why that matters, Business View Magazine recently spoke with iconectiv CTO Chris Drake. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation. BVM: To begin, can you share the background history on iconectiv? CTO, Chris Drake