netnumber Carrier ID
The Challenge: Routing
Phone numbers are no longer just random sequences of digits used by Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and messaging providers to route voice calls and text messages. Mobile-first apps like WhatsApp contributed to making them a part of the identity of their users. This means that more and more subscribers will keep their number when switching their phone provider. Combine this with the fierce competition between CSPs, especially in markets with a very high penetration of prepaid SIM cards, and you can end up with number portability rates that can exceed 50%.
In today’s world, continuing to route voice calls and text messages by number prefix leads to unsuccessful transactions and lost money. Only those CSPs who use the most up-to-date number portability data can accurately terminate their voice calls and SMS messages, thus ensuring that they continue to properly run their low-cost routing engine.
The netnumber Solution
Getting access to high-quality number portability data is easier said than done. Over 90 countries have mandated the implementation of number portability, and each country has its own unique regulations, commercial agreements and technical requirements.
More than 20 years ago, netnumber began integrating all these data sets into a single service, enabling fast, reliable access to number portability data across the globe. Today, Carrier ID provides accurate responses to the principal questions of routing decisions:
- “Should this message/call be routed at all?” or “Is this phone number valid?”
- “Where must I route this message/call?” or “What is the current network/service provider?”
This is accomplished due to Carrier ID’s ability to validate the format and meticulously resolve the current telecommunications service provider for any given phone number globally. For
that purpose, netnumber onboards code range, number portability, mobile operator, and 3rd party data sets. netnumber also combines and harmonizes disparate datasets for convenient consumption.
Many data sources are stored in netnumber data centers, either close to the customers’ location in AWS or on a customer’s premises. netnumber ’s Carrier ID platform delivers the fastest response times in the industry.
Given a phone number, Carrier ID will return a comprehensive set of related data elements needed to enable customers to determine various properties of the respective phone number and to map that information to their own carrier data set.
Key Carrier ID Features
Global Coverage
netnumber is the one-stop shop for number portability data, covering all 90+ countries where number portability is implemented.
Normalized Routing ID
We normalize the data in each country and return it in a common format, identifying each operator by its unique NNID.
Lightning-Fast Service
With many data sources stored in netnumber’s data centers, either close to the customer’s location in AWS or on a customer’s premises, Carrier ID delivers the fastest response times in the industry.
Global Carrier Mapping Registry (GCMR)
Carrier ID customers get free access to the Global Carrier Mapping Registry (GCMR) database. The GCMR is the world’s most widely utilized carrier identification database. The GCMR identifies every communications service provider in the world (over 200 countries) via a six-digit routing ID called an NNID. The GCMR provides the translation of the NNID into key information about the destination operator.
Flexible Deployment
Carrier ID can be deployed as a cloud service, in AWS or customer premises.
Customer-Defined Logic
Customers accessing Carrier ID as a query service can choose what data elements will be returned in the query response.
Fully Redundant Managed Service
netnumber operates a fully redundant service, which is managed and staffed 24×7. This ensures that you will receive carrier-grade service, availability and performance.
Carrier ID Use Cases
Existing Pain Points:
- Number portability blurs the transparency of active network/service provider
- High costs of undelivered messages
- Low conversion rates because of undelivered messages, prolonged delivery times and retries
- Fraudulent financial transactions
- Outdated contact data
- Expensive call forwarding fees
- Invoice disputes with wholesale provider
How Carrier ID resolves common challenges:
Least-Cost Routing
netnumber enables multiple CSPs, CPaaS providers, and messaging hubs to route their SMS, MMS and voice traffic accurately and cost-effectively. These companies can access the data directly from the netnumber Cloud, via an AWS deployment or as an onsite service. Number portability data from over 100+ countries and territories is complemented with global code range data making it simple and quick to identify any mobile or landline operator globally. This feeds the routing engine and helps select the best route to use for each message and for each voice call.
Service Routing (Messaging / Voice)
Some services rely on knowing the phone number type (mobile or landline). Such an example is user registration or two-factor authentication, where the one-time password can be delivered either as text via SMS or as text-to-speech via an IVR call. Carrier ID identifies the phone number type and is, therefore, a useful tool for such use cases.
Fraud Prevention
Risk scoring of telephone numbers is essential for fraud prevention purposes. Different data points give useful information about the risk associated with certain actions, for example, a service sign-up attempt or a financial transaction. Carrier ID helps determine the carrier associated with each telephone number. Fraud prevention algorithms can then attach a higher risk to prepaid numbers, which are typically easier to activate than postpaid numbers in many countries and therefore may be attractive to fraudsters or phone numbers belonging to carriers that are known to have weaker security practices.
Benefits
- Increases the success rate of SMS and voice calls
- Reduces the latency of SMS delivery and voice call setup
- Accurate, low-cost routing saves SMS and voice termination cost
- One contract, one connection and one unified format for data access in all 100+ countries and territories with number portability in operation
- Managed service saves setup, capital, and operational cost
CONTACT US TODAY!
To learn more about how netnumber ’ full range of innovative, pioneering and cost-effective phone number intelligence solutions can help you streamline, simplify and secure your network operations, drop us a line at sales@netnumber.com
