Include resellers in STIR/SHAKEN: ISCC

The Internet Society’s Canada Chapter (ISCC) has endorsed a call from Mitel Networks Corp. for the CRTC to instruct the agency in charge of implementing the anti-fraud-call protocol known as STIR/SHAKEN to allow resellers to participate in the technology. In an intervention filed Monday with the CRTC in response to Mitel's Part 1 application, the ISCC wrote that forcing the Canadian Secure Token Governance Authority to allow resellers to fully incorporate into the STIR/SHAKEN framework would ensure that the "innovation and competition brought to the Canadian telecommunications market by smaller is not lost," and will further prevent "unjustifiable levels of preference and discrimination." The protocol is already used by some telecom service providers in the United States. STIR stands for “secure telephony information revisited,” and SHAKEN stands for “signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens,” and will attach some kind of token, or identity marker, to individual numbers. In the intervention, the ISCC explains that under the current STIR/SHAKEN framework, there exist three tiers of "attestation" for a given phone call's authenticity: full, partial, and gateway attestation -- known as A, B, and C respectively. Under the current framework, calls originating from resellers would only have B and C level attestation. As "the technology becomes widely deployed, network-based call screening services will look at B and C level calls more suspiciously than A level calls, with the result that they may filter them more aggressively," the ISCC wrote in the intervention. The end result, the ISCC argued, is the creation of a "a two-tiered telecommunications system in Canada – those who can sign and those who cannot." "Like other internet technologies, we must ensure that all players, including small TSPs, can participate on an equal footing. If parties cannot participate equally in this process, the harm to the smaller carriers will be irreputable," the ISCC wrote. The STIR/SHAKEN framework was initially meant to be deployed in September 2020, but has since been delayed until June 2021. Rogers Communications Inc. had asked the CRTC to delay the launch date, citing the reallocation of resources and general disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis, as well as that the protocol is due to be launched in the U.S. in June 2021. Quebecor Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. filed letters in support of Rogers.

Include resellers in STIR/SHAKEN: ISCC

Brief | February 8, 2021

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Include resellers in STIR/SHAKEN: ISCC

Brief | February 8, 2021

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