First Orion and Hiya Join Neustar and TNS to Unify Enterprise Call Vetting and Authentication Practices Across Largest Mobile Carriers

Industry-wide vetting and authentication standards establish secure foundation for branded calling

RESTON, Va.— December 13, 2022 — First Orion and Hiya join Neustar, Inc., a TransUnion company, and Transaction Network Services (TNS) to form a strategic partnership advancing the industry’s call vetting and authentication standards with a single framework across the largest carriers in North America. This partnership helps enable secure, trusted calls to more than 285 million mobile devices and the 90 million households that rely on landline phone service.

By validating legitimate enterprises and authenticating calls through an integrated network, First Orion, Hiya, Neustar and TNS protect subscribers from phone scams, support enterprise-to-consumer communication and restore trusted calls to the telecom ecosystem. The partnership reduces industry fragmentation with a common process for enterprises to brand calls on all major carriers. Components include:

• Vetting and Registration: Leveraging a proven approach, First Orion, Hiya, Neustar and TNS established best practices to validate the legitimacy of enterprises, and confirm they have the right to use associated telephone numbers and enterprise calling party data so they can more rapidly vet and register telephone numbers.
• Authentication: Through a standards-based approach, this partnership provides new, seamless functionality to enterprises and contact centers so they can participate in the call authentication process. Using Out-of-Band SHAKEN, for instance, automates the end-to-end process of digitally validating calls.

Enterprises use branded calling to add their brand name, logo, call reason and more to the mobile display for outbound calls. This capability delivers a transparent customer experience and can help dramatically improve contact rates and customer engagement, which can increase revenues for enterprises. Through this partnership, each company monitors the delivery of branded calling services across the various networks, to help prevent scams and better protect consumers against bad actors who may attempt to misuse the service.

“The partnership’s extensive experience working with some of the largest enterprises in the U.S. allowed us to recognize the benefit of a standardized approach to vetting,” said Joe Stinziano, president and COO at First Orion. “Collectively, we support restoring trust in voice calling and helping organizations dramatically improve call engagement rates – while guarding against misuse by unauthorized parties.”

“Many service providers don’t have the ability to confidently vet their customers, or confirm the caller’s true identity at scale,” said Kush Parikh, president at Hiya. “Branded calls allow subscribers to make informed decisions about which calls to answer – and as result grow trust in the voice network. This partnership will add great value to communication service providers, enterprises, and consumers as the phone remains the preferred communications channel.”

“Vetting includes validating the legitimacy of the business, and confirming they have the right to use certain phone numbers and associated caller data. But it doesn’t end there. It’s a multi-dimensional process that spans the lifecycle of service delivery,” said James Garvert, senior vice president of Communications Solutions at Neustar. “It also impacts the entire ecosystem by paving the way for branded calling with rich content that can be verified and trusted.”

“Without a serious commitment to join forces in vetting customers and verifying legitimate traffic, bad actors will continue to destroy trust in the phone ecosystem,” said Bill Versen, president of the Communications Market for TNS. “This partnership now operates the largest single platform for delivering trusted calls to the market, with unmatched scale, authority, and intelligence. It’s an exciting time in the industry and we encourage other companies to join us in adopting this approach to help restore trust in the voice network.”

For more information, please visit the respective websites of First Orion, Hiya, Neustar and TNS.

About First Orion

Since 2008, First Orion has transformed the phone call experience for businesses, carriers and consumers through its industry-leading communication branding and protection solutions. The global telecommunications solutions provider helps businesses generate more revenue, increase efficiency, and improve the customer experience by empowering them to brand their phone calls with their name, logo and reason for calling. First Orion also provides the industry’s most secure calling experience and best-in-class analytics for call program optimization. For more information, visit firstorion.com.

About Hiya

Hiya is trusted by global businesses, carriers, and consumers to provide secure, engaging connections and stop unwanted calls. Built on the world’s leading Voice Security Platform, Hiya connects businesses with their customers, helps carriers secure their networks, and protects people from spam and fraud calls. Hiya’s SaaS applications, Hiya Connect and Hiya Protect, serve more than 200 million users on the Hiya Network and deliver voice performance insights to businesses across the globe. Learn more at www.hiya.com.

About Neustar

Neustar, Inc., a TransUnion company, is a leader in identity resolution providing the data and technology that enable trusted connections between companies and people at the moments that matter most. Neustar offers industry-leading solutions in marketing, risk and communications that responsibly connect data on people, devices and locations, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions. Learn how your company can benefit from the power of trusted connections. www.home.neustar

About TNS

TNS, a market leader in call analytics and robocall mitigation, provides an end-to-end ecosystem for protecting and restoring trust in voice. TNS addresses the full needs of wireless and wireline operators globally with TNS Call Guardian^® the industry-leading call analytics solution that protects subscribers from high risk and nuisance robocalls. In addition, its Enterprise Branded Calling solution is the core component of its Identity Analytics Suite that is taking the next step in enriching consumer engagement making voice calling an integral part of an omnichannel customer experience program.  TNS analyzes over one billion call events across more than 500 operators every single day, capturing crowdsourced feedback, enabling carriers to identify more unwanted robocalls. For additional information visit: https://tnsi.com/resource-center/communications/

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)

TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing an actionable picture of each person so they can be reliably represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good®. A leading presence in more than 30 countries across five continents, TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences, and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people. www.transunion.com

Media/PR Contacts:

First Orion
Daniel Tummeley
501-358-4061
media@firstorion.com