Ribbon and Neustar Extend Partnership to Deliver Comprehensive Solution to Combat Robocalling

DALLAS, TX  – Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global software leader in secure and intelligent cloud communications, today announced that it is extending its partnership with Neustar, a leading global information services provider and the exclusive host of the ATIS Robocalling Testbed, to deliver a comprehensive solution designed to combat robocalling and call spoofing. Earlier this year, Ribbon announced that its software and appliance-based session border controllers (SBC 5000 Series, SBC 7000 and SBC SWe) and its policy and routing (PSX) solutions had successfully completed interoperability testing to support a major industry effort, STIR/SHAKEN, which is designed to help service providers protect consumers against unwanted robocalls and caller ID spoofing.  Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) standards and the Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN) framework were developed by the IETF and ATIS/SIP Forum NNI Task Force, respectively.

Ribbon and Neustar have teamed up to provide the leading integrated solution to implement STIR/SHAKEN and mitigate spoofed calls and robocalls. The Ribbon session border controller and policy and routing solutions combined with the Neustar Certified Caller solution – offering call authentication, call verification and certificate management capabilities – deliver service providers the ability to quickly detect suspicious calls and notify business and consumer customers of potential illegal robocalls and spoofed calls. The combined solution will allow service providers to notify their end-user customers of potential spoofed robocalls. The end-users can then choose to either answer or ignore the calls. Currently, the end-user does not receive any indication on the validity of the call

While baseline standards are in place, Ribbon and Neustar are actively bringing together the service provider community to define STIR/SHAKEN implementation best practices – as evidenced by Ribbon’s STIR-SHAKEN Summit held in early March of 2019. Ribbon and Neustar intend to continue working together to address future enhancements to the STIR/SHAKEN framework as standards and deployment methodologies continue to evolve.

“Nearly half of all calls to mobile phones in the U.S. in 2019 will be scam or robocalls and our joint efforts with Neustar are designed to help our service provider customers address this growing epidemic head-on,” said Kevin Riley, Chief Technology Officer for Ribbon. “Our SBC and policy and routing solutions combined with Neustar’s call authentication and identity protection capabilities will deliver our customers a best-in-class solution to mitigate robocalling and call-spoofing.”

“Ribbon and Neustar are working closely together to deliver a holistic and seamless STIR/SHAKEN solution that will help our service provider customers better serve the end-user by distinguishing legitimate calls from illegal robocalls,” James Garvert, General Manager and Vice President, Caller Identification Solutions, Neustar. “We are passionately committed to working together to help the industry quickly adopt the STIR/SHAKEN standards, which will ultimately result in higher customer satisfaction and trust, by blocking nuisance calls before they reach subscribers.”

Key Takeaways:

• Ribbon and Neustar are working to deliver an integrated and comprehensive solution to address robocalls and illegal call spoofing.
• STIR/SHAKEN is a major industry effort designed to help service providers protect consumers against illegal robocalls and caller ID spoofing. 
• Earlier this year, Ribbon announced that its software and appliance-based session border controllers (SBC 5000 Series, SBC 7000 and SBC SWe) and its policy and routing (PSX) solutions had successfully completed interoperability testing to support STIR/SHAKEN.
• The combined Ribbon and Neustar solution will deliver service providers the ability to quickly detect suspicious calls and notify their business and consumer customers about potential illegal robocall and spoofed call activity.

About Ribbon Communications

Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN) delivers market-leading software solutions that secure and power many of the world’s leading service provider and enterprise communications environments. Built on world-class technology and intellectual property, the company’s cloud-native solutions deliver intelligent and secure real-time communications solutions for the cloud, network and enterprise edge. Ribbon’s Kandy Cloud real-time communications software platform delivers advanced and embedded CPaaS and UCaaS capabilities enabling service providers to rapidly create and deploy high-value communications services. To learn more, visit ribboncommunications.com.

About Neustar

Neustar, Inc. is a leading global information services provider driving the connected world forward with responsible identity resolution. As a company built on a foundation of Privacy by Design, Neustar is depended upon by the world’s largest corporations to help grow, guard and guide their businesses with the most complete understanding of how to connect people, places and things. Neustar’s unique, accurate and real-time identity system, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions, empowers critical decisions across our clients’ enterprise needs. Neustar is the industry leader in Caller Identification solutions, co-author of the STIR standards, key contributor to the SHAKEN framework, and serves as the exclusive host of the industry’s Robocall Testbed. More information is available at https://www.home.neustar.

Important Information Regarding Forward-Looking Statements  

The information in this release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statement regarding delivering value to customers. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this release are forward-looking statements. The actual results of Ribbon Communications may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. For further information regarding risks and uncertainties associated with Ribbon Communications' business, please refer to the "Risk Factors" section of Ribbon Communications' most recent annual or quarterly report filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements represent Ribbon Communications' views only as of the date on which such statement is made and should not be relied upon as representing Ribbon Communications' views as of any subsequent date. While Ribbon Communications may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point, Ribbon Communications specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.