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Anti-fraud Solutions in A2P SMS – Latest Trends, Threats, and Solutions

At the recent MWC Barcelona 2024, SMS fraud was a popular topic of discussion. In several panel discussions and other engaging sessions, expert speakers and industry pioneers delved into the security challenges of mobile communications. One enduring concern was the need for recalibration to end vulnerabilities in messaging systems.

So, what factors are behind this rise in sensitivity to SMS fraud?

In today’s business world, A2P SMS is an ever-growing trend. A2P SMS is leveraged by brands for sending marketing content, product notifications, alerts, reminders, and more. While this type of messaging is known to be far more reliable and effective than traditional emails, they are also becoming highly susceptible to fraud. From malware to phishing and spam, these threats have far-reaching impacts on mobile operators, including poor customer experience, plummeting revenue, and diminished brand value.

Read on as we delve into the common risks in A2P SMS and the various anti-fraud solutions you should adopt to steer clear of threats and attacks.

The Evolving A2P SMS Threat Landscape

Protecting business and customer data is a top priority for most modern companies. Yet, in a bid to drive better engagement and accelerate transactions, many organizations use A2P SMS to share important information. With benefits such as instant delivery, wide reach, and cost-effectiveness, A2P SMS acts as an extremely reliable and scalable communication channel. Analysts expect the global A2P SMS market to be worth $89.3 billion, driven by the rising proliferation of mobile phone users, mobile marketing, and e-commerce.

But as A2P SMS grows, messaging fraud is also on the rise. This communication channel is being seen as something of a soft target for attackers to launch several types of phishing and spoofing attacks.

Scammers use A2P SMS to lure victims to fake websites and reveal personal information such as passwords, PIN codes, bank account numbers, and more.
Via SS7 attacks, fraudsters can take advantage of vulnerabilities to perform malicious activities such as data theft, text interception, or location tracking.
They can manipulate sender information to make them look legitimate and deliver links to malicious websites.
Bad actors can infect A2P SMS’ with malware or viruses that can compromise the security of mobile devices and result in unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Fraudsters can also use A2P SMS to send unsolicited messages offering subscription services, tricking recipients into unknowingly subscribing to costly services.

Evaluating Popular Anti-fraud A2P SMS Solutions

As a business that relies heavily on A2P SMS, protecting yourself against threats requires you to implement certain security measures. Here are some anti-fraud solutions you can invest in to thwart A2P SMS attacks:

Blockchain-based Data Encryption

In the realm of A2P SMS, Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) is a major headache for most telecom operators. In addition to causing unnecessary frustration for users, it also increases the risk of malware, phishing attempts, and scams. Telecom operators can use blockchain-based regulatory technology platforms to register enterprise clients and telemarketers on a unified platform.

By offering access to the regulator, they can establish accountability for each event of A2P communication while blocking UCC across messaging networks. Via real-time consent management and scrubbing, these platforms can help in securely storing user, entities, and MNO data using DLT properties like immutability and encryption. Acting as a true ‘zero trust’ platform, blockchain technology can restrict stakeholders from changing any past data in any block and safeguard the business and its users against attacks.

Analytics-driven Fraud Detection

As operators struggle to combat the risks of A2P messaging, analytics-driven fraud detection platforms can help identify and prevent fraud. By monitoring SMS data in real-time, these platforms can detect fraudulent activities and pave the way for effective threat detection and remediation.

Telecom regulators can view quality and fraud data over a single dashboard. They can collect raw telecom traffic data from telecom network operator systems and use proprietary AI/ML algorithms to spot patterns and network vulnerabilities.

SMS Firewalls

SMS firewalls are a popular mechanism to protect mobile networks against SMS-based attacks. These firewalls help block fraudulent activities across all points of traffic origination. Employing AI/ML models, they can monitor real-time networks using signaling rules, detect anomalies in traffic patterns, and generate new rules for unidentified frauds.

Via real-time reporting, they can present a statistical view of all SMS transactions including incidents of fraud, and enable operators to allow/block/ignore traffic. Such real-time updates on global traffic patterns also enable the platform to generate its blacklisted content and sender types for an improved and safe user experience.

Enable Seamless and Secure Global Messaging with Globe Teleservices

The digital communication landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, with A2P SMS poised for unprecedented growth. As businesses look to exploit this mode of communication for customer engagement, they must also be aware of the many risks and invest in solutions to mitigate these risks.

Looking to securely employ A2P SMS to deliver instant messages to customers, widen reach, and boost engagement? Learn how Globe Teleservices can secure this communication channel, grow subscribers, and build brand loyalty. Explore our anti-fraud A2P SMS products and solutions for seamless and secure global messaging.

5 Ways CPaaS is Boosting Customer Relations for Enterprises

Excellent customer relationships are the most-used not-so-secret weapon for successful businesses. In this digital age, companies are building excellent customer relationships through strategic and well-planned methods for personalized communication. However, this is a time of omnichannel customer contact. The scope for communication extends across telephonic, SMS, Internet-based IM communications, emails, campaigns, and many more mediums. That makes the task of personalized communications a bit more complex.

In the past, businesses had to build their own communications infrastructure to support such initiatives. But fast forward to today, when they have a unified solution available at their disposal via the cloud. We are talking about Communications Platform as a Service or CPaaS.

What is CPaaS?

In simple terms, CPaaS is a cloud-based umbrella solution that facilitates real-time communication through channels like SMS, Voice, Email, Chatbot, etc. The framework leverages APIs through which enterprises can integrate the desired communication channels into their digital applications effortlessly.

For example, if you run an eCommerce business, then all your customer communications can be easily handled through a single CPaaS platform. Different departments like marketing, sales, dispatch, delivery, etc. can initiate the desired notification messages through the solution. It can be configured according to every specific need.

5 ways in which CPaaS is helping enterprises today

Gartner predicts that by 2025, nearly 95% of global enterprises will leverage CPaaS to improve their business communications. This is because CPaaS has the potential to offer some truly exhilarating benefits for businesses that utilize them.

Let us explore the top 5:

Facilitate real-time communications

The major advantage of CPaaS is that it facilitates real-time communication between customers and the business. Traditionally, this was possible only with person-to-person interactions that happened in stores or via telephonic conversations. With CPaaS, there is a huge opportunity for businesses to build autonomous personal communication channels in real-time. They can use SMS, automated voice calls, WhatsApp, or Chatbots to deeply engage with their customers at any time.

The conversations can be triggered in real-time by any desired trigger event. For example, when a shopped product is shipped from the warehouse or when a delivery agent picks up the food ordered via a food delivery app and so on. Every communication sent out can be personalized with permitted data from customers to build a very engaging communication experience.

Empower marketing

With CPaaS, businesses can equip their marketing teams with a direct communication channel with several engagement options. Rich text or media like videos and images can be shared with customers through integrated WhatsApp and other social media messaging applications.

They can also use the CPaaS solution to segregate target customer populations into buckets for more effective targeting through campaigns. Platforms like CPaaS+ from GTS offer even more attractive features like tracking campaigns, analytics on the performance of campaigns, etc. Such solutions can provide real-time visibility into several crucial aspects thereby helping marketers fine-tune their approaches easily and more effectively.

Enhance security

As businesses compete to win customers through best-in-class apps, there are often security concerns that they run into like fraudulent access, impersonations, etc. With CPaaS, enterprises can add additional layers of security to their digital communication approaches. They can use it to deploy authentication mechanisms via SMS OTPs or automated flash call verification, etc.

An additional feature that enterprises can leverage is the ability to offer masked number communications to customers. This helps in protecting against the misuse of the customer’s data.

24*7 availability for support operations

CPaaS solutions don’t just help by enabling communication channels. They can also allow enterprises to automate the operation of such channels. We have already seen how applications like food delivery apps and eCommerce can use CPaaS for real-time notifications. On a different note, the same capability can help set up 24*7 support operations for customers.

This is extremely important when you want to expand your digital business globally as support operations need to be run 24*7. Customer queries can be answered with AI-enabled response systems integrated into your content generation workflows for SMS, Chatbots, etc.

Cost-effective

Irrespective of the business size, having a reliable communication experience with customers is critical for growth. But for smaller businesses, investing in massive communication infrastructure will be a very tough proposition. With CPaaS, this challenge is easily resolved. The solution provides two major capabilities. One is the ability to offer subscription-based pricing since it is a SaaS platform running on the cloud. The second benefit is the modular flexibility it offers for adding communication channels on demand.

Enterprises can use CPaaS as a plug-and-play solution wherein they can add communication channels one after the other depending on the business growth. They can add the desired engagement functionality on specific apps or digital services as per demand. The modular flexibility results in them paying only for what’s needed at that point of time in their business growth journey.

One-stop communication is a competitive advantage

CPaaS is an extremely powerful tool for today’s businesses to revolutionize their customer communication experiences. Building a sustainable competitive edge requires businesses to be able to be closer to their customers, nurturing their interests and engaging them constantly. With CPaaS, all this becomes possible out of a single one-stop solution.

However, making the right call in selecting the CPaaS solution is also equally important. This is where GTS can help make a difference. Our CPaaS + platform is equipped with advanced features that go beyond the traditional capabilities of CPaaS solutions. Get in touch with us for a quick demo and decide for yourself.

The Unseen Dynamics: Fintech and Telecom’s Subtle Integration

Technological advancements are accelerating innovation across the fintech industry. A collaboration between both the sectors is driving economic transformation by bridging the gap between digital connectivity and financial inclusion.

Collaboration between telcos and FinTechs in Africa is an inspiring example. Telcos not only provide calling services and mobile reception, but they are also revolutionizing the way this economy accesses and uses financial services. FinTechs, simultaneously, are targeting the telco’s large customer base for greater synergy. The Digital payments market in the MENA region is estimated at USD 226.53 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach USD 380.86 billion by 2029.

The evolving role of telcos in bridging the digital divide

Telcos are becoming fintech providers. They are making finance accessible to the underserved by turning mobile phones into virtual wallets. Many telcos in the African region are now offering their own digital currencies and add-on services. Offerings like MTN Mobile Money, Vodacom M-Pesa, and EcoCash, offered by Econet are transforming how people manage their finances. These currencies are now being accepted by retailers, supermarkets, and even utility companies. Users can now conveniently send and receive money, access loans and savings, pay bills, etc. right from their mobile phones.

Millions of people who previously had limited options to access banking services are now gaining access to the same through the operators.

The rise of new business models

Telcos and FinTechs are re-visiting their business models to expand service offerings, diversify revenue streams, increase competitiveness, and influence competitiveness in this dynamic industry.

This positively impacted customer experience by allowing customers to make transactions, transfer funds, and manage financial services easily from their mobile phones. Apart from this, mobile banking allows customers to manage their bank accounts through calling, text messaging or WhatsApp for quick on-the-go status updates.

Lending and insurance services are other areas where both the industries have come together to provide easy access to traditional banking services for all. These leverage the robust data sets available with telcos and tap their access to real-time messaging channels to create intelligent and scalable ecosystems. This drives actions like credit rating and real-time analysis, through powerful monitoring and reporting.

Fintech providers who specialize in cross-border payments and telcos are also collaborating to facilitate international and domestic remittances through digital channels. In all of this, telcos are playing a prominent role in developing digital identity verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.

Driving the future of FinTech

We have witnessed the rise of internet banking, mobile banking, and mobile payments and have seen them become an integral part of our lives. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are playing a pivotal role in securely facilitating payments from anywhere in the world.

This telecom infrastructure also plays a key role in enabling the security of banking data. Secure networks, reliable connectivity, and speed of telecom networks are crucial to expedite the future of the fintech revolution.

Telecoms are now making investments in network infrastructure, including 5G networks and edge computing, etc. to enhance data transmission speed, and enable fast deployment of fintech solutions.

Such partnerships are aiding the fintech sector in expanding the reach and capabilities of their solutions. Integration of technologies such as AI, cloud, and advanced analytics has further enhanced convenience for this tech-savvy generation. This collaboration is driven by the increasing demand for quick and seamless experiences, which are the determining factors for today’s young customers.

Telcos are powering fintech innovation by providing access to cloud services, resulting in sandbox environments for startups to test and refine their solutions. This enables them to provide secure and verified customer data to enterprises, facilitating credit scoring and KYC processes.

The vast pool of data has led to greater personalization of financial products, allowing rapid development, flexibility, and powerful access to endless possibilities. This is redefining digital finance and payment solutions.

Enabling regulatory compliance

Digital transactions have now got the endorsements of governments across the world as a secure means to conduct financial activities. These digital channels have helped both the sectors to make these transactions more secure, traceable and detect fraudulent transactions more easily.

However, as the landscape continues to evolve, telcos have become more agile in adapting to regulatory frameworks, causing new financial models to come into being.

Telecom and fintech companies are share a common objective – to enhance customer experience and broaden access to financial services. To achieve this, collaboration is key to tackling challenges including networking, regulatory hurdles, and mitigating fraud risks.

In Conclusion

Digital payments and transactions are now a part of our new normal.
Telcos are emerging as prominent enablers in the fintech realm, elevating customer relationships and financial products to new heights. Governments across GCC countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE are offering strong regulatory support for fintech innovation-driven to build a globally integrated environment. The role of telecom in this cannot be ignored.

The telecom and FinTech sector creates a transformative impact on the economy by driving financial inclusion. The need for more secure, fast, and accessible payment systems keeps increasing as the world becomes increasingly interconnected and digitized. The convergence of these two sectors helps in driving innovation and growth in a digital economy.

Mobile Ecosystem Security – Threats, Trends, And Predictions

The telecom industry is no stranger to security threats.

From phishing to SMS scams, the industry has seen it all.

However, the industry is still seeing a spike in these threats. For example, in 2022, consumers in the US lost $330 million to SMS scams.

What’s more? Telecom operators have also witnessed new telecom frauds in recent years.

According to Nokia’s report, there has been a five-fold increase in malicious botnet Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) traffic emerging from vulnerable IoT devices. Another report stated that nearly three-quarters of 5G operators experienced up to six security breaches. These resulted in network downtime, regulatory issues, and unauthorized access to customer data.

While technologies like IoT and 5G promise a future of connectivity and innovation, mobile operators worry about new threats.

They must consider new mitigation strategies to improve mobile network security and adapt to the ever-changing landscape.

Let’s look at various threats to discover how operators overcome them with the latest security technology.

Five Trends And Predictions To Secure The Mobile Ecosystem

Attackers have found a new way to hack the network. It’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). They have been using AI/ML to impersonate humans to enter the network, build sneakier malware, and create deep fake data.

The good news is operators can use the same technology to solve the problem. They can use AI to analyze baseline behavioral patterns and highlight anomalies. For example, AI/ML can analyze previous breaches, such as malware, phishing, and DDoS, and suggest mitigation steps to operators.

This helps them take pre-emptive measures on time and safeguard the network. It will also allow them to improve network reliability and protect customer data in real time.

5G security

Several telecom operators have started providing 5G network connectivity to customers in different countries. 5G promises to connect billions of devices and people by transporting data 1000 times faster than 4G. In fact, 5G is more secure and addresses the vulnerabilities of the 4G network. For example, it offers more robust encryption, data protection, and end-to-end security protection for source and destination network traffic. It provides a unique feature called network slicing that segments the network and offers custom security controls. So, operators can block or quarantine the traffic on that network slice whenever there is an incident. This helps in reducing the attack surface, enhancing security.

However, there are still a few privacy concerns. One being that 5G connects more devices than 4G, exposing the network to more vulnerabilities. Operators could face challenges in real-time while monitoring threats, compromising the connected devices.

These issues have brought several telecom operators together for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) collaborative project. it aims to set and update security standards based on the changing landscape.

Threat intelligence sharing

Despite collecting large amounts of information on cyber threats, operators do not share it with other operators.

In an interconnected world, operators can no longer withhold threat intelligence information or function in silos. They must share this information in order to improve security posture and safeguard customers from threats. This could include sharing the latest on emerging threats, best practices, and standardized protocols. The aim is to help operators put a united front to stay ahead of the attackers.

GSMA’s T-ISAC and FASG have already started sharing knowledge and best practices to make networks more secure. They host webinars and share industry experts’ opinions on building a safe environment for operators to exchange intelligence safely.

Such initiatives motivate operators to become more proactive in sharing intelligence with others.

SMS Firewalls

Due to the staggering number of application-to-person (A2P) messages from enterprises worldwide, SMS fraud remains a concern. According to Elon Musk, X lost over $60 million yearly due to A2P fraud. Mobile operators are concerned about this loss and have taken precautions to alleviate these issues. One of the solutions used is SMS firewalls.

An SMS firewall acts as a barrier for mobile networks. It screens the incoming and outgoing messages based on algorithms to detect and block malicious messages. This prevents spam and fraud messages from reaching the recipients, saving them from data theft.

IoT security

Every industry – from healthcare to manufacturing- is adopting IoT to connect devices and accelerate innovation. However, the connected devices are susceptible to cyberattacks like malware despite their benefits. A single attack is all it takes for a bad actor to steal sensitive data from the device and halt all business operations.

Mobile operators can address these issues by implementing a device authentication mechanism, zero-trust policy, and end-to-end data encryption. They can also isolate the IoT network from the main infrastructure to prevent attackers from entering the network and impacting critical systems.

As the IoT ecosystem expands, operators must take additional precautions to nip the attacks in the bud. Vodafone, for example, uses traffic management tools to set thresholds and alert customers when they identify a suspicious pattern. This allows operators to provide innovative connectivity solutions without compromising on security.

Conclusion

Mobile operators must constantly balance enhancing security and introducing innovative products. This helps them to meet customer demands, of securing the network from threats.

Combining new mitigation strategies and advanced technologies with AI/ML capabilities can help operators achieve the required balance. It also helps them improve compliance and save cost.

We recommend working with a trustworthy technology partner who can provide the right technology to identify and block threats.

Globe Teleservices, for instance, has been building solutions like Armour and Grentor to protect networks from frauds. Armour uses AI/ML and analytics to prevent voice and SMS fraud. Grentor tracks network user activities to detect and analyze fraud, helping operators protect country networks from bad actors.

Solutions like these help operators take pre-emptive measures and build innovative solutions without compromising security.

If you’ve been looking for solutions to safeguard your network, voice, and SMS from threats, contact us. We’ll be happy to help.

Customer Experience Trends For 2024 – Telecom Edition

The role of customer experience in telecom is being radically transformed in the wake of increased digitization. As 5G networks, better infrastructure, and newer markets emerge, the telecom sector is at the cusp of a customer experience transformation. It’s also true that in many ways, the telecom industry has the potential to impact the way other sectors build their customer experience. In fact, recent studies show that nearly 76% of customers still prefer a telephone conversation with customer support. This statistic itself highlights the important role a telecom services provider has in the customer experience lifecycle across sectors. Clearly, knowing the market pulse is important for improving customer experience in telecom.

Communication is a key driver of customer experience. Hence, a telecom services provider must know what customers expect in every kind of interaction to deliver great experiences not just within their business, but also to support other sectors to offer the same to their customers.

Let us explore the top trends relating to customer experience in telecom for 2024:

1. Hassle-free onboarding

The digital economy is rising globally. People are shifting more of their common activities into digital mode. The changed behaviors that persist even after that pandemic is behind us have accelerated the trend as well. From banking to shopping, education, and entertainment, customers are demanding hassle-free digital experiences. This is not only a benchmark for any telecom services provider but also a key promise they need to enable for their enterprise customers.

They need to ensure that customers get a hassle-free no-nonsense onboarding experience into their network. Authenticating credentials shouldn’t be a problem. From auto parsing of OTPs to flash calls, there are a host of solutions that telecom providers must deploy to improve the onboarding experience.

Furthermore, they can also act as a gateway agent for other businesses to build similar experiences. For example, authenticating a user’s credentials via OTPs or flash calls can be a standard option for an OTT app or a social media app. Telecom players can be the bridge of trust serving both the customer and the business that wants to engage with them. With platforms like Authentrica, this can be easily achieved.

2. Learning about the customer

Most businesses believe that knowing the customers enables better service delivery. In 2024, businesses will need to deploy more innovative means to capture data from customers and learn from it. In the past surveys about customer experience were the de-facto medium for businesses to gain insights. However, studies say that a typical survey considers less than 7% of a business’s actual customer base for generating insights. The need to go beyond surveys is evident here. This is where a telecom services provider can make a difference.

Telecom providers can capture the preferences or consent of customers for all sorts of communications that happen over the network. That could be permissions for SMS campaigns, WhatsApp communications, emails, etc. It could be to create powerful Customer Data Platforms or first-party data gathered with customer consent. Telecom companies and their customers can leverage platforms like Consentica to manage user consent effectively. Using this information, they can help build better customer experiences based on ethically gathered customer data.

3. Protect personal data

Building trust is a key factor that influences customer experience. As we move deeper into the digital economy, customers are also becoming more aware of the threats that lurk out there. Many of these threats can be addressed if adequate protection is offered for sensitive data. Hence great customer experience demands a more strategic and focused approach towards integrating security features for personal data.

Telecom companies too must follow this trend. However, they have the additional opportunity to become a second layer of protection for customers. As explained earlier, telecom companies can build a layer of trust by collecting consent info from their customers. By building powerful encryption and network protection frameworks, they can ensure that personal data is never compromised by services running on networks. With tools like TxtChain, they can help trace telemarking activity with strict control on how user data is leveraged by 3rd party services. Firewall solutions can be deployed to ensure vulnerable entry points are discovered and neutralized before any incidents happen.

4. Preparing for an exciting journey

2024 will witness further expansion of the digital landscape in almost every sector. Telecom companies have the opportunity to not just improve the customer experience they provide but also drive industry standards across sectors. They can become the supporting framework for other sectors to push their customer experience initiatives forward at an accelerated pace. However, to do so telecom companies need to have the right technology required to build a powerful service economy on top of their network infrastructure. From security to monetization of assets through expansive partner services, telecom companies have a real potential to transform from their traditional roles. GTS is the perfect partner to ensure success on this path. Get in touch with us to know more.

The One “Platform” To Help You Transform Customer Experience

The one factor that distinguishes great companies from mediocre ones is personalization.

Great companies personalize experiences and go beyond transactional relationships to engage with customers and build long-lasting bonds with them.

So, what’s stopping other companies from delivering these elevated experiences?

According to Statista, 80% of companies acknowledge the impact of personalization on customer spending. 62% admit that it has improved loyalty and retention.

Yet, due to fragmented data from disparate sources, most companies are unable to customize.

It’s apparent that companies need a comprehensive view of their audience to understand their needs and tailor interactions.

However, the increasing touchpoints make it hard for them to gather, analyze, and act on the data.

That’s where the Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes to the rescue.

What Is A Customer Data Platform?

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a software solution that collects and organizes data from different sources to build a single customer profile. It collects the customer’s identity, lifestyle, as well as behavioral and aspirational data from sources like CRM, social media, websites, and PoS systems. This detailed data enables companies to create comprehensive customer profiles, individualize experiences, predict trends, and accelerate decision-making. It’s called a platform because it serves as a unifying frame for the entire range of applications and solutions that need to access customer data to drive action.

Why Use CDPs?

A CDP can deliver multiple benefits:

Unifies data

CDPs use SDKs and APIs to pull data from disparate sources into a single platform. It creates a customer profile containing Personable Identifiable Information (PII) such as the customer’s name, address, email ID, etc. The unified customer profile can be used by marketing, sales, product management, and customer support teams to improve customer experience.

Improves personalization

Besides PII, CDPs also capture extra insights like browsing history, website visits, and social media activity. This valuable information enables the sales and marketing teams to understand preferences and buying patterns. It empowers them to customize product recommendations and create targeted marketing campaigns to increase engagement. More importantly, the support team can leverage this data to tailor customer interactions. A cohesive, hyper-personalized approach can help companies boost customer retention, repeat purchases, and reduce churn.

Makes compliance easier

Companies must adhere to regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to build customer trust and avoid legal hassles. The centralized platforms of CDPs can help companies collect and manage all the data in a single location. It will also protect the PII details and audit them regularly. By storing all information in one place, a company can easily grant access to customers to view it upon request. This will help companies improve transparency, protect customers’ privacy, and maintain compliance.

Supports data-driven decision-making

In a fast-paced business landscape, companies have to make quick business decisions. For that, they need access to real-time data. CDPs can gather real-time information from different sources and provide timely insights on customer behavior and market demands. Such rich information can help decision-makers forecast trends and behaviors accurately and devise strategies to meet them. CDPs are truly useful in improving decision-making and aiding innovation. It enables companies to accelerate go-to-market strategy and gain a competitive advantage.

How Telecom Operators Can Benefit From CDPs

A telecom operator receives customer first-party data, including PII details, customer usage patterns, travel habits, device preferences, and billing information.

If used correctly, all this information can help improve personalization.

According to McKinsey, telecom operators can boost revenue by 10% and customer engagement by 20-30% through data-driven personalization.

However, only 5% of them are harnessing data to personalize experiences.

That’s why CDPs are so vital for telecom operators. They can gather data about the customer into a unified platform and use it for the following purposes:

Personalize subscription plans and offers

Telecom operators can use CDPs to analyze usage patterns and recommend relevant subscription plans. For example, they can suggest unique roaming plans for frequent travelers or internet plans for remote professionals. This will help them deviate from the usual one-size-fits-all offerings and improve retention.

Upsell and cross-sell plans

CDPs offer a complete view of usage patterns, allowing operators to cross-sell or upsell relevant packages. For instance, they recommend location-specific data and voice call plans to frequent travelers and higher data plans to streaming users. This helps operators increase sales and drive revenue.

Reduce churn and retain customers

With the help of CDPs, operators can categorize users based on their activity and engagement levels and launch targeted campaigns. For instance, they can send renewal notifications to expiring subscriptions and display attractive data and voice packages to new customers. These individualized campaigns can reduce churn and increase retention.

Improve compliance

There’s a thin line between personalization and privacy violation. Telecom operators should be careful not to cross that fine line. A data breach or privacy violation could lead to irreparable damages to the operator’s reputation and revenue loss. CDPs can help operators adhere to compliance rules like GDPR. By breaking down silos, it unifies information, improving transparency and efficiency in data management. It can help operators establish data governance standards, improve access control, and track suspicious activities. It acts as a single source of truth and provides more visibility on how data is stored, accessed, and handled. It makes monitoring and tracking efficient.

How Can Telecom Operators Enable Innovation With CDPs?

The telecom industry is evolving rapidly, making it increasingly complex for operators to differentiate themselves. It has become even more challenging for them, with the Millennials and Gen Z becoming the primary user base. They expect individualized experiences from their telecom operators.

Thus, companies need to devise unique initiatives to engage with them. For example, they could offer micro-finance for device purchases or do something as simple as streamlining the digital onboarding process.

CDPs help operators enable innovation #ei, offering valuable insights into customer behavior.

It’s an excellent technology to retain your users, earn more revenue, and grow.

To know more about how CDPs and other technologies can benefit your business, contact us.

Top 5 Ways in Which Modern Telecom Solutions Change Lives

Conversations around the evolution of telecommunications, wireless networks, internet services and more, usually revolve around communications and business applications. While the power of telecommunication has indelibly changed that space, it has also transformed other aspects with a far deeper and life-changing impact.

This blog explores how modern telecom solutions are changing lives.

Fostering socio-economic development

Modern telecom solutions have been instrumental in connecting individuals across urban and rural, and rich and poor segments. These solutions have delivered access to information, markets, and services, where its impact can be felt most significantly by the underserved sections of the society.

Telecommunication solutions have also influenced digital inclusion and equality by giving people from all walks of life access to essential digital technology. This has been instrumental in reducing socio-economic inequalities and fostering inclusive economic growth. Mobile phones have represented the first telecom infrastructure in many places and are proving crucial in driving connectivity.

It is through these solutions that people in the underserved areas delivered tangible economic benefits and improved access to information.

These solutions also create employment opportunities and influence economic outcomes. The mobile industry in the Sub-Saharan region, for example, has created approximately 2 million jobs for people directly and created employment for another 1.8 million people in the wider ecosystem in 2019.

Financial inclusion driven by digital payments and mobile money

The rise of digital payments and mobile money can be credited to the maturing of telecommunication networks and infrastructure. This growth has been further fueled by the expanding number of telecom solution providers, and pursuant innovation in this space.

Financial inclusion prompted by mobile money and digital payments has been a game changer for people. This is felt especially in areas where traditional banking services are inaccessible. Almost half of the world’s mobile money accounts come from the underserved Sub-Saharan region. This region also has more mobile money accounts than bank accounts.

The rise of digital payments and mobile wallets have driven financial inclusion in underserved areas and have made payments faster, simpler, and safer across the world. Innovations in the form of e-KYC have further driven financial inclusion by allowing those operating in this sector to acquire reliable and clear documentation.

Enable Small Business to Make a Big Impact

Modern telecom solutions are the cornerstone of the digital economy. Telecom solutions have helped small businesses remain agile, flexible, and responsive to constant change and market disruptions. These solutions have been instrumental in driving e-commerce and have helped many small entrepreneurs start small businesses from their homes.

These solutions improve connectivity and accessibility, allowing small businesses to expand their customer footprint. They also help them manage their customers, partners, distributors, and supplier ecosystem irrespective of their location.

Robust telecom solutions and internet services are driving cost savings and cutting travel expenses. They are delivering access to talent from low-cost geographies for small businesses using teleconferencing and remote work.

Effective telecom data management and real-time analysis provide valuable insights into markets, customers, and operations of a small business. SMS and social media messaging provide opportunities to engage personally with customers and improve customer experiences.

Telecom solutions have become instrumental in protecting revenues by ensuring greater security from grey routes and challenges like data theft, SIM phishing, and other threat actors.

Effective telecom solutions are helping small businesses enhance operations, creating opportunities to improve customer service, increasing efficiencies, and driving their growth and success.

Revolutionizing Healthcare Access and Delivery

Modern telecom solutions have been instrumental in making healthcare services more accessible and cost-effective, across rural and underserved areas. These segments of societies across different geographies can access medical services and healthcare professionals irrespective of geographical barriers.

Telemedicine, mHealth, remote health monitoring, etc. have enabled people to access quality healthcare, especially in places where it has been limited traditionally. The integration of telecom tech solutions in the healthcare ecosystem has improved medical diagnostics, enabled real-time collaboration amongst physicians and healthcare professionals, and enabled remote patient monitoring to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes.

Telecom solutions have been instrumental in enabling preventive medicine too. These have allowed healthcare professionals to provide personalized care plans and make timely data-driven adjustments. According to a study from the National Library of Medicine, telemedicine is as effective as in‐person visits for reducing 30‐day readmissions in patients with heart failure.

Improve education access

Mobile phones and the internet have been a key driving force in improving access to education and changing the lives of people. Telecom solutions in the education space are bringing classrooms online and improving knowledge access. They are creating pipelines to help learners draw distant information, interact with experts, and engage with students worldwide.

Telecom solutions have ensured that students in underserved areas can access quality information that would otherwise be hard to acquire. These have been instrumental in improving inquiry-based and analytical skills and creating greater access to education.

Wireless connectivity allows learners to access educational content from anywhere and collaborate with their peers and teachers. It democratizes education by increasing learning opportunities and allowing economies to build educated workforces.

Modern telecom solutions have been instrumental in reshaping the world that we live in and have been creating more equity for those in poor, rural, and underserved areas. And technology plays a key role in helping telcos deliver the services that change lives.

For instance, telecom solution providers need to exert caution to prevent incidents like grey routes and ensure greater security of their networks. Small businesses demand greater assurance, low latency, and cost-effectiveness in international voice and messaging services. Telecom solutions providers and CSPs deliver origin-based routing services for dynamic routing, as well as anti-fraud voice solutions for the best and most secure business communications. Real-time call monitoring and anti-fraud checks also become essential to drive seamless connectivity and secure networks for safer, smarter, and faster communications.

Telecom solutions are essential to spearhead the advancement of emerging economies worldwide. They improve communication access across the underserved sections of society and create opportunities. Underserved regions like Africa are now connected to the rest of the world more than ever before thanks to proliferating telecom networks. Today, telecom solutions have been instrumental in promoting health, education, agriculture, entertainment, business and tourism.

Also, more than 300+ hubs have emerged in the African tech startup ecosystem because of the telecom sector. These are creating more opportunities for economic advancement and social upliftment.

Changing the world isn’t easy but someone has to do it. As we can see, telecom services companies are trying to do just that, with a little help from technology!

The Exciting Promise of Generative AI in the Telecom Sector

The telecom sector is experiencing rapid technological evolution and adoption. Telecom-specific technologies heralded by the coming of 5G and the rise of themes like OpenRAN, and network virtualization are helping improve efficiency and performance. The rise of technologies such as cloud, IoT, and 5G are also helping this sector improve operational efficiencies and elevate security. They are also helping in fraud prevention and helping companies drive personalized customer experiences.

Rising cost pressures and increasing competition are further incentivizing technology exploration for telecom and network operators, CSPs, and others operating in the telecom universe.

Generative AI is emerging as a new force promising transformational outcomes to the telecom industry and helping them navigate some of their most pressing challenges.

Why should the telecom sector pay attention to Generative AI?

AI has been one of the most talked-about technologies of our time. Generative AI is expected to be bigger and more impactful.

Reports suggest that the Generative AI market is to grow a staggering US$1.3 trillion in the next 10 years. The global Generative AI in telecom market size, estimated at USD 150.81 million in 2022, is expected to touch approximately USD 4,883.78 million by 2032.

Generative AI could find many applications in telecom and has a large impact area. For instance, it could allow telcos to work with huge data volumes and give them insights into identifying patterns to drive a positive impact on the bottom line. It promises to create opportunities to redefine how the telecom sector operates, engage with customers, optimize services, secure operations, and drive profits.

Generative AI seems to have the potential to solve complex problems and find several application areas in the telecom ecosystem.

Some of them are:

Network performance optimization

Telecom networks are vast and complex. Thousands of interconnected components run this ecosystem. Network reliability and performance are of paramount importance.

Generative AI can improve the performance, efficiency, and reliability of telecommunications networks to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of different customer segments. The technology can also support 5G initiatives by providing intelligence for load balancing and traffic shaping.

CSPs can use Generative AI solutions to unearth advice from vast amounts of unstructured data. This helps in network performance optimization, operating cost management, avoiding over or under-provisioning resources, and overall network management improvement.

Resource planning, management, and optimization

Telecos can now use the power of Generative AI to plan and build networks more efficiently to improve network performance and improve costs. This technology allows telcos to extract insights from unstructured data. This allows them to analyze data from sources such as social media, emails, customer calls, etc. to predict future demand for services.

It can analyze large data sets on network usage and predict where resources are likely to be needed. Better resource allocation capabilities directly translate to better user experience, improved customer experience, and more cost optimization.

Security and fraud detection

AI has been at work helping telcos enhance the security of their networks for a while now. With Generative AI telcos can examine larger, unstructured data sets, and set rules and user behaviors. This allows them to identify patterns that detect malicious activities and attacks proactively and effectively.

Generative AI allows telcos to move beyond static rules to address rapidly evolving and advanced threats targeting CSP networks. Algorithms that adapt to the changing threat landscape, automate anomaly detection and enable automatic remediation actions. These can present relevant data to human security analysts for faster issue detection and resolution.

Enable innovation and accelerate R&D

One of the emerging challenges in the telecom sector is the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. Maintaining data privacy and security is becoming important for compliance with regulations like GDPR.

Generative AI can generate large volumes of synthetic data. This makes it uniquely positioned to help telecom companies and CSPs fuel innovation exploration and accelerate research and development.

Synthetic data resembles real data. It can thus be used to test and develop solutions. It can also be used to drive analytics and probabilities without exposing customer/sensitive information. This helps telcos drive their innovation agendas while maintaining data privacy, mitigating risks, and ensuring compliance.

Customer Experience

Generative AI presents numerous opportunities to influence customer experience. These range from user behavior modeling to predict customer response to new services, pricing models, and network changes. It could also be possible to identify ways to enhance service delivery with generative AI-powered chatbots as well as to adopt more intelligent CRM systems.

Intelligent virtual assistants can help the telecom sector improve operational efficiencies by relieving customer service agents of routine tasks and freeing them up for more complex assignments.

Generative AI can be used to power CRM systems and analyze extensive real-time data to gain deep insights into customer behavior. It helps companies identify potential churn risks, reduce response times, and enhance support experiences. Gen AI can analyze customer interactions, sentiment, and behavior data to grasp customer sentiments and preferences, foresee customer requirements and preemptively tackle potential concerns.

Smart Billing

Telcos can add greater intelligence to billing systems, increase billing accuracy, and reduce manual work and human errors with Generative AI. The technology can analyze customer usage data and behavior patterns and assist in creating personalized billing plans that improve customer satisfaction and reduce billing disputes.

Generative AI also finds application in fraud mitigation with a powerful algorithm ecosystem that examines trends and abnormalities in network data. The telecom sector can look at Generative AI to prevent phishing, sim-card cloning, and other security vulnerabilities and protect sensitive infrastructure and consumer data from unauthorized access or attacks.

Generative AI holds tremendous potential to drive transformational outcomes in the telecom sector. It will be interesting to see how the industry progresses to adopt it.

Shining A Spotlight On International Revenue Sharing Fraud

As the world becomes a global village, people rely on international calls and SMS to connect across borders. In fact, it has become one of the most reliable revenue sources for telecom operators.

According to a Global Market Insights report, the International Voice Carrier market will grow to $120 billion by 2032. To offset carrier costs and maximize revenue, telecom operators worldwide enter an agreement to share revenue from calls, premium numbers, and content services.

While this arrangement ensures transparency, rising incidents of International Revenue Sharing Fraud (IRSF) plague the industry. According to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), IRSF has led telecom companies to lose nearly $27 billion.

But what is IRSF, and how does it impact the telecom industry? Let’s find out.

What Is International Revenue Sharing Fraud And How Does It Affect The Telecom Industry?

To understand how IRSF works, we must know how it began.

As mentioned, telecom operators have secured arrangements with each other to share the revenue from international calls.

Revenue share varies by location and carrier due to differences in local costs and revenue goals.

Some destinations, for instance, have high call termination rates.

In IRSF, the fraudster routes the calls/messages, often automated and/or fake, to premium services or destinations with high termination rates. The fraudsters receive a higher revenue share by exploiting the revenue-sharing agreement, and telecom operators lose money in the process.

Types Of International Revenue Sharing Fraud

IRSF attacks could happen through compromised devices, bots, stolen SIM cards, etc. Here are some of the common types of IRSF attacks that occur.

1. SIM Box fraud

Fraudsters use a device called a SIM Box that contains multiple SIM cards. They use it to bypass the international call charges and make international calls using the local rates. They also direct the call or SMS to specific destinations or premium rate numbers.

2. Malware

Telecom companies are struggling to protect customer data from rising malware attacks. By some estimates, over 5.5 billion malware attacks occurred in 2022. Typically, malware enters a network and exposes customer data to various cyberthreats.

Telecom operators have always been conscious that they could face financial losses and lose customers due to security breaches, network disruptions, and service outages. To add to that, recently, the computer emergency response team (CERT) of Orange, Poland’s leading mobile operator, discovered that malware can make IRSF calls.

They explained in a communication that the malware would sneak into a mobile phone with an old Android version. It would wait till the phone is inactive for a long time to make paid calls to expensive destinations outside Europe. The “hack” often goes unnoticed until the customer receives a bill for calls they never made.

3. IP-based

IRSF is not restricted to calls or SMS anymore. Fraudsters are now targeting digital-native companies, too. They have started creating synthetic identities (a combination of fake and real customer information) and generating revenue using fake numbers. This impacts the reputation of the digital-native companies and ruins the customer experience.

How To Tackle International Revenue Sharing Fraud?

Despite being prevalent for so many years, detecting IRSF is very complex. That’s because multiple jurisdictions are involved in the process of collecting, routing, terminating, and tracking this traffic. These frauds are so complex that even law enforcement agencies struggle to identify their origin. Sometimes, the scam comes to light only when the customers complain about the exorbitant bill and at others, not at all!

According to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), telecom companies lost $38.95 billion to frauds like IRSF.

However, the good news is these frauds can be prevented with the help of regulations and technology.

1. Regulations

Given the complexities of detecting such frauds, telecom companies, regulators, and companies must work together to tackle them.

Take New Zealand Telecommunications, for instance. The leading telecom player in New Zealand had established IRSF prevention guidelines to protect customers. The guidelines provided steps to help network operators, service providers, and carriers to combat IRSF. These included guidelines like educating customers about changing PINs, turning off PBX ports, not answering calls from unknown international numbers, etc.

Similarly, Europol established a Cyber Telecom Fraud Working Group in 2017. The group comprised law enforcement officers from 18 countries and more than 35 global telecom companies to combat IRSF. In 2018, the group reported over 250,000 fraudulent transactions, 100 were reported to law enforcement agencies, and 25 new investigations were initiated. The group managed to block payments worth EUR 13.13 million.

2. Technology

Telecom companies and regulators should invest in AI/ML-powered technologies due to the multi-jurisdiction nature of crimes. This will help them detect IRSF more proactively and prevent them. These technologies can detect fraud patterns or suspicious behaviour of a user on any network and take proactive steps to suspend them. They can also use historical data to analyse and predict abnormal patterns and take pre-emptive measures to secure networks.

As IRSF becomes more sophisticated, companies cannot use traditional fraud detection systems. They must use an advanced anti-fraud solution to identify IRSF and other fraud across local and international markets.

Conclusion

The telecom industry plays a pivotal role in economic progress. Telecom bridges the global connectivity gap and uplifts the economy. Voice calls and SMS are the ever-present fabric connecting the different facets of our world today. People and businesses in remote areas can also grow by relying on this essential connectivity.

Thus, it is crucial for telecom companies to keep adopting innovative technologies to prevent telecom fraud and keep the growth engine running.

At Globe Teleservices, we believe in enabling innovation across the telecom spectrum.

Hence, we build innovative technologies, methods, tools, and approaches to help the telecom industry meet challenges and customer demands.

We have developed technologies like Armour X to identify IRSF and other fraud across local and international markets. This helps telecom companies reduce revenue leakage, improve customer experience, and secure their network better than competitors.

To know more about how technology can help you prevent telecom fraud like IRSF, contact us.

The Evolution of Firewall: From Legacy Systems to Next-Gen Security

In an industry that prides itself on keeping the world connected digitally, the telecom sector is no stranger to security threats. With the highest number of global DDoS attacks, it has long relied on firewalls as a primary threat aversion mechanism.

Legacy firewalls have been a mainstay for a while

By filtering out suspicious traffic or rogue elements from within their global network through predefined rules, firewalls have safeguarded the telecom sector from several threats. 5G rollout is underway on a big scale globally. As the world prepares for a new dimension of digital complexity, traditional firewalls may not do the job for telecom players anymore.

The challenges of legacy firewalls

They are incapable of supporting modern network complexities. They could also fall short of being able to handle newer operating nuances like cross-protocol integration, security node-based signaling in the place of core network nodes, etc.

However, an even bigger threat lies in the inability of legacy firewalls to counter new-age cyber threats.

The digital world which is growing exponentially is also now one of the major avenues of fraudulent activities and exploitation. From the theft of sensitive customer data to impersonation or identity fraud, the breadth of the threat landscape is immense.

Cybercriminals are even deploying artificial intelligence-driven agents into the digital space to break safeguards and penetrate deeper into enterprise networks. Very often, the entry point they choose to attack is the gateway used by an enterprise to connect with the internet. Suspicious links embedded in SMS text messages can go past legacy firewalls and easily put users at risk.

That’s why traditional firewalls deployed by telecom operators must be equipped with the intelligence or knowledge needed to combat such threat agents.

The shift to new generation firewalls – Why now?

The need to strategically move into the next generation of firewall capabilities is critical given the industry’s role as a key pillar of digital transformation in all sectors. Additionally, here are some of the top reasons why telecom operators must embrace the next generation of firewall technologies to stay competitive:

Rise of cloud

Today, cloud services are used by almost every business irrespective of its size or domain. With the cloud, user authentication becomes a major step of the usage journey. Most businesses rely on traditional methods like SMS-based OTP authentication or call-based authentication to help end-users avail cloud services. However, legacy firewall technologies cannot distinguish between genuine authentication prompts sent by the business and fraudulent signals ingested into the network by criminals.

New age threats

Telecom fraud is a major threat that needs attention. Studies point out that in 2023, telecom fraud has risen by as much as 12%. This translates to billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Similar to SMS frauds, and authentication fraud via missed calls mentioned before, there are a number of diverse network-focused threats in play today. Through fraudulent routing, fraudsters may bypass legacy firewall protection and reach end users with communication scripted as a genuine business message. Other means like bulk malicious SMS traffic may cause legacy firewalls to be jammed and entry into the network automatically provisioned to prevent further congestion. Such threats pose significant risks to telecom operators, compromising network security and yielding negative outcomes.

Growth of IoT

With 5G technology taking off at scale, businesses will look forward to mobilizing their resources around promising technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT). Worldwide spending on IoT is expected to surpass the USD 1 Trillion mark by 2026.

A lot of machine integrations will happen in services traditionally offered by businesses. For example, scenarios like a smart fridge placing replenishment orders to the nearest grocery retailer or an e-commerce service autonomously can become a normal thing soon. There is a catch here. With machine communication over the internet becoming mainstream, it is extremely important to authenticate credentials of control data. Control data could be transmitted in the form of messages, calls, etc. Traditional legacy firewalls are not capable of handling such advanced authentication processes.

The promise of new-generation firewalls

As telecom companies gear up to spearhead digital innovation, they can certainly leverage highly intelligent firewalls like the GTS Armour firewall to guard their progress at all times. Such new-generation firewalls come with a host of features that are much needed in the emerging security and evolving landscape of telecom usage.

One of the striking benefits that telecom companies can leverage from modern firewall solutions is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in firewall operations. From threat discovery to neutralization, AI-powered continuous analysis of network traffic by modern firewalls holds great promise. They equip telecom players with the much-needed confidence to partner with other businesses for their digital ambitions.

Platforms like the GTS Armour offer protection against high-end security threats like identity fraud. There is a combination of techniques that firewalls use. Some include robo-calling, interconnect fraud prevention guards, virtual machine fraud detection, etc. Such firewall solutions offer peace of mind for telecom players as they seek to expand their business partnership ecosystem. Through powerful contextual analysis such AI-powered firewall solutions can easily identify and block fraudulent or suspicious text messages way before they are delivered to end users.

Telecom companies are perceived as a foundational element of modern digital experiences. Securing their operations is of primal importance for telecom businesses. Investing in state-of-the-art firewall solutions like Armour helps telecom companies improve their trust credentials in the market with proven security. Get in touch with us to learn more about revamping firewall security in your telecom business with the GTS Armour firewall.