Providers stirred up by ‘premature’ anti-spoofing system deadline

Canada’s telecommunications providers have united to delay the implementation of a system that would detect and flag spoof phone calls, labelling the CRTC’s timeline of Sept. 30 as “too aggressive” and “premature” in interventions to the regulator. Telecommunications providers and industry lobby groups filed 14 interventions to the regulator, each describing spam and spoof calls as a serious issue and saying the STIR/SHAKEN protocol is the most promising avenue to addressing them, but cast doubt on its ability to be ready by September. In a decision last September, the CRTC said it would be up to telecom service providers to design the particular system, and would make offering it a condition of providing telecommunication services in Canada. The STIR/SHAKEN technology will flag spoof calls through an as yet undesigned notification mechanism that will notify the receiver of a call’s suspicious origin, leaving the decision as to whether or not to answer to the consumer. The Canadian Network Operators Consortium said in its intervention that smaller providers might not have the resources to meet the “very urgent” timeline and said there was no “production ready” solution for resellers or providers who use wholesale services, meaning no calls received by those providers would be able to be badged as fully verified. “Currently, it may only be possible for such TSPs to achieve “gateway attestation” level of authentication, which is the least certain form of authentication in the STIR/SHAKEN framework,” CNOC said in its intervention. “On this basis, larger TSPs who have full or partial attestation will appear to be more authentic and therefore more desirable to consumers, significantly disadvantaging reseller TSPs and hurting competition in the TSP marketplace.” The Canadian Communication Systems Alliance (CCSA) asked for the implementation date to be pushed back 12 months, to September 2021, and for a six month extension to the deadline for implementation action plans, which are presently due by Feb. 24. The September implementation deadline is the second set by the CRTC, which in 2018 outlined an expectation that telecom providers would have a solution in place by March 2019. In its intervention, the CCSA said that a number of its members were currently assessing the retrofit costs of complying with the STIR/SHAKEN requirements, but said the process was “time consuming and solutions generally are not yet well defined”. “CCSA members recognize the importance of the protections that the STIR/SHAKEN protocol will provide to their customers. What they need is time to find the solutions that they can reasonably implement,” the CCSA said. Bigger providers also called for the date to be pushed back, warning of the risks to the system’s integrity if it was implemented prematurely. Telus Corp. said in its intervention that STIR/SHAKEN should not be mandatory until smartphones had manufacturer-supported software that displayed the authentication to the receiver of a call, providers had deployed IP voice switching program software and the CRTC’s Interconnection Steering Committee’s Network Sharing Group had finalised approved guidelines. It also said certainty around verification protocols was needed and that the Canadian Secure Token Governance Authority, the CRTC-appointed governance authority for STIR/SHAKEN, needed to appoint both a Certificate Authority and a Policy Authority before the scheme could begin. “STIR/SHAKEN is now at a critical juncture, in that vendor software for switching platforms is available, the Canadian Governance Authority has been confirmed and advancements in the U.S. make it likely that manufacturer-supported smartphone software will soon be available,” Telus said in its intervention. “However, gaps remain for certain call types and certain TSPs that make an immediate implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN platform impossible, to the extent envisioned by the Commission.” Shaw Communications Inc. agreed a Policy Authority needed to be appointed before the system could be implemented, as well as testing, both at an internal company level and between multiple providers. “In addition to vendor selection and testing, STIR/SHAKEN is a very complex set of protocols and procedures. It is still evolving through the relevant international standards bodies,” Shaw said. “A phased approach with staggered due dates would provide the industry and the Commission with a more realistic schedule for implementing STIR/SHAKEN. It would also provide all parties with greater insight into ongoing activities and potential barriers.” Replies are due by Feb. 11. —With reporting by Adam Langenberg at alangenberg@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Providers stirred up by ‘premature’ anti-spoofing system deadline

News | January 31, 2020

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