Ribbon Holds STIR/SHAKEN Summit to Address the Growing Robo and Nuisance Calling Issue

DALLAS, TX – Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global software leader in secure and intelligent cloud communications, today announced that it recently hosted a two-day STIR/SHAKEN  summit to bring together service providers across North America along with government agencies and industry organizations to address the growing issue of robo and nuisance calling. The summit, which was held in Dallas, Texas March 5 – 6, included more than 60 representatives from 40 service providers. STIR/SHAKEN is a framework developed by the ATIS/SIP Forum NNI Task Force to reduce the number of illegally spoofed calls.

More than half the calls to all mobile phones in the US in 2019 will be robocalls. Addressing this rapidly growing issue is among the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) highest priorities. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has demanded that service providers begin implementing STIR/SHAKEN in 2019.

“It was really impressive to see the high level of interest at the summit from nearly every major service provider in the United States and Canada and their commitment to solving the illegal spoofing problem that nearly all of us are experiencing on a daily basis,” said Dr. Eric Burger, Chief Technology Officer for the FCC. “We look forward to working closely with service providers, vendors and industry standards bodies to mitigate this issue as quickly as possible through initiatives like STIR-SHAKEN.”

“It was a pleasure to be part of Ribbon’s STIR/SHAKEN summit and update attendees about the vital work of the SIP Forum/ATIS NNI Task Force,” said Richard Shockey, Chairman of the SIP Forum. “The STIR/SHAKEN framework was specifically developed to eliminate one of the biggest problems in the communications industry today, and events like the STIR/SHAKEN summit are instrumental in educating industry stakeholders about the STIR/SHAKEN framework and helping them gain the knowledge they need to effectively deploy solutions in their networks.”

“We were pleased with the turnout and positive reactions we received from conference attendees,” said Tony Scarfo, EVP of Products, R&D, Support and Supply Chain for Ribbon. “It really is a true indication of how big a problem this is and how focused the industry is on solving it. We are working closely with our partners and industry agencies to deliver holistic solutions that will directly address the robocalling issue.”

Last month 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. Ribbon is working with industry partners like Neustar on a comprehensive solution that will allow service providers to notify their end-user customers of potential robocalls. The end-users can choose to either answer or ignore the calls. Currently, the end-user does not receive any indication on the validity of the call.

Key Takeaways

• Ribbon recently hosted a STIR/SHAKEN summit designed to help accelerate the industry’s efforts to combat robo and nuisance calling.
• STIR/SHAKEN is a framework developed ATIS/SIP Forum NNI Task Force and stands for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) standards and the Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (SHAKEN).
• More than 40 service provider companies across North America and the FCC and other industry organizations attended the summit.
• Robocalling is one of the FCC’s biggest complaints and one of the agency’s highest priorities. The FCC Chairman has demanded that service providers begin implementing the STIR/SHAKEN standards in 2019.
• Ribbon is working with industry partners to deliver advanced solutions aimed at authenticating calls and notifying the end-user of potential nuisance and robocalls.

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 The SIP Forum

The SIP Forum is a leading IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, such as the development of industry recommendations; interoperability testing events including SIPit, and special workshops, educational activities, and general promotion of IP communications standards, services, and technology for service provider, enterprise and governmental applications. The SIP Forum is also the producer of the annual SIPNOC conferences (for SIP Network Operators Conference), focused on the technical requirements of the service provider community. One of the Forum’s technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation – a standards-based SIP trunking recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and SIP-based service provider networks, and the SIPconnect Certification Testing Program, a unique certification testing program that includes a certification test suite and test platform, and an associated “SIPconnect Certified” logo program that provides an official “seal of certification” for companies products and services that have officially achieved conformance with the SIPconnect specification. Other important Forum initiatives include work in security, SIP and IPv6, and IP-based Network-to-Network Interconnection (IP-NNI). For more information about SIP Forum initiatives, please visit: https://www.sipforum.org.

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.