Welcome to the third TADSummit Online 2025 Conference Session. We run these once per week, and as always deliver honest insight. No BS, it’s in our policies.

Daniel Gill, is now SVP Corporate Strategy at AOT – All in one Telecom! Previously founder and CEO Augnet. AOT has taken over the clients and technology of Augnet. It’s a Family Office, one of the hardest entities to gain funding from. This session is a celebration of what Augnet achieved, and where it is going. Joined by Kevin Graham, Cavero Quantum also deserves a celebration, and Johnny.

At the end of last year, one of the investors in a company that was evaluating acquiring Augnet decided to buy the intellectual property, enterprise accounts, and put up some funding. A SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) named AOT (All in One Telecom) was created to execute the transaction. A great result for all Augnet’s hard work.

I asked a direct question, given Augnet has shown the SMS industry does not care for governance and certification, where next? Daniel agreed, governance and certification was assumed to matter to enterprises. It was a starting assumption. However, the 7 year history of Augnet showed that assumption was not correct.

However, the scale of AIT (Artificially Inflated Traffic), the loud complaints from global SMS customers like Twitter and Google, the work of TADSummit in exposing the reality of the industry, and support of many SMS leaders in the industry such as Kevin Graham and Robert Vis have finally resulted an emerging discussion across the industry. As always timing is everything.

The gap in the market is for enterprises to provide assurances that AIT is not in the supply chain. They need to be able to independently assess the supply chain. I mentioned the work of BT Group and Deutsche Telekom as examples of protections. However, those ecosystems as focused on protecting against smishing, not AIT. I also mentioned the work of Tim Biddle of Sinch in educating the market, for example on Global Title Spoofing. We’re getting there, albeit slowly.

Following on from the increased openness on the issues facing messaging. Johnny asked will it move to finally calling fraudsters out? Daniel pointed out that there are no metrics in the AIT space, defining what is acceptable / unacceptable. Its a closed loop system, with multiple independent fraudsters. For example, Amazon is being hard hit by AIT at the moment, and there simply is no entity that can quantify the extent of the fraud.

There are 3 factors, the fraud (revenue) from fake traffic, screwing with routing tables using AIT to make some routes appear better than reality, and selling private information gathered from AIT for gain via the dark web. Daniel covered these in more detail on TADSummit Podcast 24 and in his TADSummit Conference 2024 presentation.

Johnny highlighted how Daniel and Kevin have fallen up through having honesty and integrity, and should be celebrated by the industry, well they are celebrated at TADSummit.

Johnny asked about Google’s shift from SMS to QR codes for Gmail. It reflects the common frustration we see from the largest SMS customers. The lack of action from the SMS industry. And Kevin makes the point SMS will not disappear, it will remain in place for many years. Even given the convenience of passkeys for customers. When SMS prices go north of 20c, companies like Google will change the mix across the technologies used for a country, away from SMS. As discussed on our first TADSummit Online Session, “Google rejects SMS OTP for QR Codes? I understand the SMS bit, but QR codes?“

Daniel highlighted three considerations for large organizations using SMS. Cost, governance, and customer friction. There’s a balance, a dial that shifts depending on the market. Personally, I find passkeys great, touch the biometric button (phone or laptop) and I’m in. Using SMS or email for OTP is a pain comparatively. The market is evolving, SMS OTP will not disappear. However, the lack of action on AIT is driving the market away. So it’s good enterprises can take action themselves with AOT.

Johnny brings the discussion on why the family office invested in AOT. Knowing the explosion in IoT, as maturity is now driving what once would appear edge cases. It’s no longer expensive assets like million dollar trucks in quarries, its to the point of fire extinguishers, fire detectors, fire doors, etc. Where noisy alarms once sounded, now maintenance / security get called in the business offices. The hype has passed, and the plateau of productivity is approaching opening up many applications. And AOT delivers the authentication, encryption, and security given its mobile phone heritage. Where SMS can provide a data path.

Johnny finished on the respect Daniel and Kevin have from the industry for helping the whole industry lift the lid on its issues, that are now commonly discussed. Helping customers drive change through fostering trust, which only comes from being truthful.