Business View Magazine | May 2020

17 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2020 WILL EFFORTS TO BLOCK ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS NEGATIVELY IMPACT LEGITIMATE BUSINESSES? OPENING L INES New market brief from iconectiv examines why international business calls to the U.S. may be inadvertently blocked and looks at how to address the potential issues • What’s the News: Legitimate calls originating outside the U.S. may be wrongly blocked by initiatives aimed at tackling illegal robocalls, creating a damaging impact on businesses. • Why it Matters: The new Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN) is designed to address illegal robocalling and help rebuild consumer trust – studies show that in the U.S., 76 percent of calls from an unidentified or unfamiliar number are left unanswered. • Who’s it for: As SHAKEN is deployed in more countries, U.S. and international telecom service providers, regulators and enterprises need to fully understand how the service differentiates between illegal robocalls and legitimate international calls. B RIDGEWATER, N.J.–With illegal robocalls representing nearly half of all unwanted calls in 2019, the new Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN) is helping to rebuild consumer confidence and trust in the U.S. by mitigating the impact of the criminals. However, as international calls will also pass through the SHAKEN service, overseas service providers need to be fully aware of the process to ensure their calls are properly authenticated and verified, and not inadvertently blocked due to lack of trust in the authentication information or lack of authentication altogether.