Introduction

ValleyData is a team of independent consultants dedicated to empowering stakeholders in the telecom and CPaaS sectors with expert guidance.

ValleyData specialize in comprehensive 360-degree A2P SMS and RCS consultations, serving a diverse array of customers within the ecosystem, including Mobile Operators, Aggregators, Carriers, ISVs, CPaaS providers and Enterprises.

Their commitment is to deliver industry insights and best practices in the complex messaging landscape.

Over the past ten years carriers have become increasingly reliant on aggregators (they use the term CPaaS) to help address the issue of A2P fraud.

This path has not always led to successful outcomes. Given the rise of AIT (Artificially Inflated Traffic) to the point brands have moved to other forms of transport, such as email (that shows how bad things have become) and passkeys.

ValleyData delivers a quantified status report across the use cases on the extent of revenue leakage. After which, optionally a plan can be created to remove those sources, and protect against further leakage. No internal network access is required, the carrier can take operational control.

A2P Channel Monitoring

OTT apps and online services are the most price sensitive A2P SMS originators, and they are focused on delivery regardless of features.
They are first to use cheap grey routes as they appear on the market, so testing them is the best and fastest way to detect leakage.

Aggregators are using grey routes for cost optimization. The SMS are sent to ValleyData equipment via a direct or grey route (SS7, SIM farm, flash call), this is recorded.

Exclusive A2P Partner

The trend of assigning A2P SMS exclusives to a single commercial partner has brought multiple challenges:

• Nontransparent selection process
• Unrealistic volume expectations
• High commitments

This has led to:

• Loss of control of pricing policy
• Suboptimal monetization strategy
• Incentive for unethical ways of traffic increase
• Ultimate reduction of A2P use-cases and traffic decrease

Solution is:

• Transparent partner selection process through RFP
• Partners should not compete based on total revenue or total volume
• Operator should independently manage firewall with internal resources
• Objective third party quality assurance solution to assess effectiveness

Artificially Inflated Traffic

Fraudulent activity where traffic is created by bots to increase revenue in the messaging chain. Simply, its stealing from the brand, see diagram below.

This leads to:

• Creating huge losses for traffic originators
• Bad debt for players in messaging value chain
• Operators’ reputation is at stake

Solution is:

• Implementation of AIT preventions services (API)
• Direct cooperation between traffic originators and MNOs.
• Securing direct brand name channels

The ValleyData Approach to Addressing the Challenges

These recommendation are great and back up our recommendations in the Honest CPaaS Review.

• No A2P exclusives.
• Address Alternative Channels
• Close down AIT

Innovators are responding to the markets’ needs, like ValleyData. Action is required, the time for nice words on codes of conduct has passed.