From the world’s biggest hyperscalers and largest technological drivers to every individual end user, the race toward digitalization has put us all on a ubiquitous mobile map. Our world is an online one, defined by our digital identities, consumed by convenient online services, and predicated upon our ability to stay on the move without losing touch with our desired experiences and services. It’s no surprise that our phones have become the new epicenter of security, accessibility, mobility and innovation. Not to mention, our phone numbers (along with the ecosystem where they’re collected and leveraged) have transformed into one of the most urgent addressable markets for providers in this industry.
With this convenience, however, comes a core concern: Fraud is an enduring force that is shaping our mobile world from the dark side as quickly as prominent technological innovators are shaping it for good. So, as we launch into the years ahead, our journey will undoubtedly be defined by this ongoing negotiation between innovation and conservation - all with the end user, the business ecosystem and the security of the networking in between hanging in the balance. Going forward, there’s no arguing that intelligent phone number data - which provides key insights into the behavior, velocity, accessibility, viability, and security of individual phone numbers globally - will become the necessary, trusted sentinel of next-gen tech and the routing that supports it. Still, with demands evolving, even those data-based solutions need to be carefully sought and managed.
From sophisticated scam calling and texting events deepening the need for smart, nuanced regulation to on-demand requirements from users driving the need for real-time data insights on the business operations side, these are the top three trends changing the tides of our digital era.
#1: Trust as the New (and Premier) Business Asset
Before users’ lives became inextricably intertwined with online services, experiences and data-based footprints, business currency was defined by the dollar sign, and bottom lines were driven by how much cash flow and service uptake was present. This is probably an obvious statement - but today, the reality is far more complicated. When private user data is involved and so much of day-to-day life - from online banking to healthcare and personal messaging and calls - is managed digitally, the new and dominant currency is trust. Customer trust and revenue are, in many cases, one and the same. Businesses that can’t harness or maintain user trust will lose those customers’ dollars. Still, building and reinforcing trust has never been more difficult, which puts mobile providers, hyperscalers and everyone in between in a difficult scenario.
Fraudsters and their mechanisms are becoming more sophisticated, and losses are high. Due to the complexity and ubiquity of calls and texts, it can seem nearly impossible to manage and prevent scams when so much activity and so much data are flowing everywhere all the time. Still, this is where the entire mobile ecosystem - and particularly the regulators at the helm - will either sink or swim. Regulatory bodies and policies are now called to understand the deep nuance at hand while gaining unprecedented visibility into our complex footprints, and that requires harnessing extensive, granular, real-time and intelligent data. After all, accurate data is perhaps the only way the intricacies of the mobile ecosystem can be understood and mastered.
Re-establishing trust through advanced, data-based mechanisms and policies will be the only way to pave a smooth path for the communications advancements coming our way (for instance Apple and Android RCS) from the hyperscalers in 2024 and beyond.
#2: Be Frictionless, Be Flexible - But How?
Security and privacy might be the biggest looming challenge for networks, connectivity and mobility going forward, but addressing the need for on-demand, instantaneous service continues as an urgent driver. Today, value is derived from high degrees of accessibility, mobility, speed and convenience. End users never want to miss a beat, whether it’s an incoming message or a log-in to their digital bank portal.
As a result, data providers and data buyers across this landscape are facing even greater demand for accuracy, and challenges around permissible use and data origins are raising the stakes. Now, this puts the industry in a ‘survival of the fittest’ status quo. Time-based services shrink the available time to innovation for those providing the data that creates secure, reliable communications routing, and that pace is only growing. Today, staying afloat among on-demand requirements from users means finding a data partner who knows the value of unparalleled speed and can deliver data accurately on a global scale.
#3: Artificially Intelligent…Scams?
It’s an unfortunate truth that any technology used constructively in our world can also be used destructively. In our digital landscape, it’s arguably easier than ever to exploit gaps in systems and even manipulate the behavior of users to damaging ends. Going forward, we’ll have to watch for phone SMS scams, phishing, brand impersonation, viral information harvesting and other advanced fraud activities being shaped by artificial intelligence. Where there are real, fragile digital identities, we should assume there are robust synthetic identities too that are capable of collecting personal information from users.
It may seem backwards to say that the solution to data leakage is to generate, collect and leverage even more data, but this is the truth. The more identity information we collect, the greater our capability to intelligently model, track, analyze and create predictive mechanisms that will rival the AI advancements of fraudsters. Information is our closest ally, as it presents the only way to view the inner workings (and inner vulnerabilities and exploitations) of our global system. So, as even more advanced experiences and rich service opportunities traverse our mobile, digital world, the depth and breadth of our data has no choice but to follow suit. It will be up to the communications enablers and data provisioners to create a safe, viable and even collaborative playing field for hyperscale applications to run on.
