David Turner, Vice President for Neustar’s Global Numbering Intelligence product line, writes about the evolution of messaging, and delivering a successful customer engagement
Recent trends in messaging will create significant growth in secure A2P messaging, RCS, and 2FA services. Neustar discusses how its GSMA PathFinder solution can manage this massive increase in volume, securely and reliably, to get the right messages to the right recipient when it matters most.
How does PathFinder futureproof service providers for the demands that RCS and A2P messaging will create?
By 2023, A2P traffic growth is expected to increase by 40%. As the leading authority on number resolution, PathFinder helps service providers ensure that their traffic is routed accurately, securely, and cost-efficiently. Using virtual resources with edge nodes and a cloud infrastructure, our carrier-grade application is built to anticipate and scale to capacity requirements that will exceed the projected growth – ensuring subscriber’s messages get through.
Even with the adoption of chat apps, why does SMS remain relevant?
SMS has long been considered a trusted, safe, and ubiquitous global message delivery, regardless of user application and irrespective of changes to mobile networks or upgrades to mobile devices. Around 98% of all text messages are promptly opened by the receiver, making this a key channel for business communications. For new chat apps to catch on, adoption will be key. However, we are seeing that while certain regions may adopt a new chat app, it may be struggling in others, creating fragmented adoption that isn’t conducive to successful business communications. This fragmentation occurs because of regional hurdles: broadband access isn’t readily available; regulatory constraints; or some regions, particularly in emerging markets, are slow to adopt smartphones, a prerequisite for most new chat apps.
How does PathFinder mitigate the security concerns around IoT and messaging?
PathFinder utilizes multiple data sources, including portability data, numbering plan data, and regulatory data, to filter out fraudulent requests from unrecognized sources. Leveraging this data validation, PathFinder is able to build a legitimate portability response and mitigate security concerns.
What are the benefits of PathFinder being cloud-based?
PathFinder is a cloud-based solution, running on a Carrier-grade resilient infrastructure that is deployed at four geographically dispersed sites, allowing for fast, simple, and cost-effective implementation. Each geographic location has built-in application redundancy to eradicate any potential faults that could occur on the backend or frontend, ensuring 99.999% platform availability to the 8.6 billion numbers we cover across over 250 countries and territories.
What is the significance of PathFinder being recognized by the GSMA as a neutral provider?
GSMA has entrusted Neustar to operate PathFinder for over 10 years. This long-lasting relationship is a recognition of the impartiality we provide in the portability discovery process. Most entities in this space perform number portability discovery as well as message transmission. These two functions can often infringe on each other, unable to provide the same trust and reliability that PathFinder delivers. We do not compete with our customers, nor do we terminate messages, which is the key factor to the trust we have gained from the members of the ecosystem.
What are the strategic priorities for 2021?
Our strategic priorities for 2021 revolve around continuing to provide a premium service to our customers, including next-gen messaging services such as RCS and IoT. This includes adding advanced discovery capabilities, reducing latency for countries with higher response times, improving service locations, enabling privacy-compliant applications, and adding more redundancies on coverage for certain countries.
What should buyers consider when looking for a vendor?
Buyers should always keep in mind the high cost of misrouting traffic through expensive network options. Over 5 billion people globally send and receive text messages, making this a critical application for your business. It’s vital to work with a vendor who offers a solution that provides high availability, global coverage, and privacy compliance to protect your brand and deliver an exceptional customer experience.