What Is STIR/SHAKEN and Why Does It Matter for Your Calls?
If the rise in unwanted calls isn't irritating enough on its own, number spoofing and shifting Caller IDs make it worse — deception that's led consumers to stop answering calls from anyone they don't already recognize. That's a real problem for legitimate businesses trying to conduct ordinary business by phone.
Illegally spoofed robocalling is the number one consumer complaint to the FCC. These calls typically originate from an IP address rather than a traditional wired line, making it difficult to trace them back to their source or shut the operations down. To address this, federal and state agencies worked with the telecom industry to build a way to trace any call back to its originator — culminating in the TRACED Act, signed into law January 6, 2020, which requires voice service providers to implement the STIR/SHAKEN authentication framework on IP networks.
What is STIR/SHAKEN?
STIR/SHAKEN — Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information using toKENs (SHAKEN) — is a Caller ID authentication framework of interconnected standards that verifies a call's point of origination and traces it back to its source.
The framework requires authorized SHAKEN service providers to digitally "sign" customer calls, acknowledging that they know who their customers are. That gives regulators an easy way to trace any call's origin through the SHAKEN digital signature, and puts any carrier that fails to properly identify its customers at risk of losing its ability to sign future calls.
At its core, STIR/SHAKEN is about re-establishing trust in the communications ecosystem, pushing back harder against robocalling, and protecting consumers.
Quality Voice & Data is an approved SHAKEN service provider
A national telecom carrier licensed by the FCC, Quality Voice & Data has met the rigorous requirements to provide call attestation at the highest level for its customers, terminating calls directly to other carriers so calls are signed and delivered with full attestation.
