Insights

Leading Telecom Experts Discuss the Benefits of Toll-Free at PTC ‘20

Feb 06, 2020

Terry Causey, VP & GM Internetworking Solutions, Allstream
Peter Claassen, Head of Commercial SMS, Zipwhip
Nick Sgroi, Senior Vice President, Voice Products and Network Strategy, Bandwidth
Michael Rothchild, Chief Operating Officer, RouteTrust

What do these four authorities all have in common? Aside from being leading experts in the telecommunications industry, they all embrace three very important qualities:

Vision, Value and Validation.

For those not familiar with the Three Vs, in the world of Agile, Vision, Value and Validation act as the critical pillars that are essential to driving innovation. At the 2020 Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Annual Conference, these leading experts in the Toll-Free industry came together to discuss how the fundamentals of each of these pillars are being applied to shaping the future of Toll-Free. The panel session, titled Toll-Free: How an Established Identifier Drives Valued Business Connections and moderated by Somos’ Director of Account Management, Jason Kempson, additionally explored Toll-Free’s role in driving business and creating Vision 2020 and Beyond.

Vision

Toll-Free Numbers are best known in the communications world and beyond as established identifiers that help provide both a platform for businesses to connect with customers as well as brand recognition. While this may be where Toll-Free Numbers are rooted, as the panel discussed, the opportunities for Service Providers, carriers and enterprises to unlock value in Toll-Free are truly endless. For those who have Vision, future use cases for Toll-Free Numbers are abundant. From texting and RCS messaging to IP-based peering and beyond, Toll-Free Numbers are unique differentiators that empower businesses, build trusted connections and perhaps most importantly, provide a key competitive advantage for organizations – regardless of size, geography or industry.

Value

Sure, you may have a Vision, but does that vision provide Value? When it comes to Toll-Free, the answer is yes! As trusted, recognizable identifiers, Toll-Free Numbers support customers by providing a reliable channel that can be used to get in touch with a company. Value isn’t exclusive to customers; however, providers can also benefit from Toll-Free branded communications; marketing and analytics; texting and dynamic routing capabilities. And for those providers that are focused on Vision 2020 and Beyond, the future opportunities for direct peer IP based routing are especially valuable, both from an efficiency and routing control perspective. Additionally, with powerful solutions such as Somos’ RouteLink, which is positioned to offer both traditional AND IP call routing data, businesses can gain access to the tools needed to help process calls faster – thus extracting even MORE Value.

Validation

While Value and Vision are integral to driving innovation, without Validation, these pillars lack the comprehensive support needed to create change in the communications industry and beyond. When it comes to Toll-Free and validation, authentication is paramount to identifying the origin of a call and ensuring that the number being displayed is in fact the right number for the originating caller. One solution that is currently providing Validation and offering verification services is Somos’ Toll-Free Number (TFN) Identity. As the trusted source for Toll-Free Caller ID information, TFN Identity is a powerful solution that allows Responsible Organizations (Resp Orgs) to store Caller Name information (frequently referred to as CNAM) so that it can be displayed when a subscriber receives a call from a brand’s Toll-Free Number.

As learned in the session, Toll-Free: How an Established Identifier Drives Valued Business Connections, Toll-Free is a powerful resource that provides Value, Vision and Validation. More importantly, as we continue to innovate and evolve and construct Vision 2020 and Beyond, Toll-Free will play a critical role in how businesses make trusted and meaningful connections with customers.

To learn more about PTC ‘ 20, visit: https://www.ptc.org/ptc20/https://www.ptc.org/ptc20/