Question:

What is STIR/SHAKEN and how does it impact Everbridge Suite?

Answer:

STIR/SHAKEN is set of technical conventions, or better known as a protocol, used by telephone carriers at the mandate of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reduce spam telephone calls in the United States. Per the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications (CRTC), Canadian telephone carriers will also be mandated to use STIR/SHAKEN beginning 30 November 2021. When adopted, carriers can validate the ownership of the caller ID used for calls (referred to as “attestation”) and display a trust indicator, such as “Caller Verified” or “Potential Spam” as part of the phone display when the recipient's phone receives the call.  This is applicable to both mobile and landlines, but depends on the degree of support from the carrier delivering the call and the compatibility of the phone in terms of message and graphic display.

Additional information on both the FCC regulation, as well as the technical aspects of the protocol, can be found on the FCC website at Combating Spoofed Robocalls with Caller ID Authentication.

Where does Everbridge fit into the STIR/SHAKEN picture?

Everbridge originates telephone calls on our clients’ behalf using various telephone carriers; we do not act as a telephone carrier ourselves. Hence, STIR/SHAKEN is not meant for Everbridge to implement into our platform. However, we must ensure that calls we initiate have all the necessary information, so that the telephone carriers can attest them properly when delivering calls to devices.

What is Everbridge doing to facilitate STIR/SHAKEN?

Most US telephone carriers have STIR/SHAKEN in place. However, for various reasons, it is still not widely adopted to its full potential. Everbridge continues to work closely with all our telephone carriers and other technology companies to ensure that calls initiated through the Everbridge platform are not marked as spam because of STIR/SHAKEN. Some examples of our collaboration efforts:

• 16 Jul 2021, T-Mobile press release - T Mobile and Partners Complete First Ever Wireless Call with Rich Call Data.
• 23 Nov 2020, NetNumber press release - Technology Companies Complete First-Ever Telephone Call with Authenticated Caller ID and Rich Call Data, Powered by STIR/SHAKEN.

This is an ongoing effort as STIR/SHAKEN becomes more commonly used by carriers.

Is STIR/SHAKEN the de facto standard for determining spam calls?

STIR/SHAKEN is one of multiple data points used in determining if a call should be considered “Potential Spam” or “Caller Verified” by telephone companies. Other factors include caller ID registration with the carriers (more on this below), call volumes, and consumer reports of fraud or spam from a specific number. Each carrier, or its analytics data provider, has their own proprietary algorithm for which data points they use and how much weight they give each data point to make a final determination whether a call should be marked as spam.

Is there anything I can do as an Everbridge client to ensure my telephone calls are not marked as spam?

We highly recommend that if you have any U.S. phone numbers you use for caller ID in your Everbridge service, then you register those numbers with all the tier 1 carriers in the US (or the analytics companies that each carrier uses). Calls that use a caller ID with a registered number have a lower likelihood of being marked as spam. More details on phone number registration may be found in knowledge base article 000062522 - EBS: Caller ID Phone Number Registration in Everbridge Suite.