News & Events

We are pleased to announce that i3forum Insights Light is available to both i3forum members and non-members. Insights Light enables companies managing international voice traffic with fewer resources and smaller teams to participate in the Insights solution. More participants means more data, a win for existing and new subscribers, and the industry overall!

I3forum Insights is the only market trending and benchmark solution based on fact, the aggregate, anonymized, actual performance data of participating members: no opinion, forecasting, or data modeling.

With Insights and Insights Light our members receive an unbiased view of the market trends including their position and ranking versus the competition and the market average performance levels. Insights includes information on over 17,400 destinations and greater than 3,000,000 individual data points. Core KPIs include geographic data, traffic and revenue, and quality of service data.

How i3forum Insights Works

Once approved for product usage, participants upload their voice traffic data into the Insights system operated by Telegeography on behalf of the i3forum.

Participants may compare their own data against the anonymized, aggregated data provided by other carriers via the state-of-the-art analytics engine Tableau, an industry leader in analytics and business intelligence. Data provided by a carrier is always kept 100% confidential.

Light tier participants will have access to simplified static reports detailing both aggregate voice market trends and detailed benchmarks of key KPIs against market levels. Their data submission requirement is further reduced to quarterly uploads (from monthly) to lessen internal resource requirements. Simplified data uploads and report usage is at the heart of Light.

In order to join the i3forum Insights solution, please contact the i3forum’s Christian Michaud or Telegeography’s Jon Hull.

For detailed service descriptions, member testimonials, database design and architecture, data KPIs, and more, visit the i3forum Insights web site.

Best Regards,

Philippe Millet – Chairman
Christian Michaud – Executive Director

International messaging fraud – join the fight!

The i3forum has established a work group to improve the fight against international messaging fraud, leveraging our experience with voice fraud prevention and management.

Join the first meeting on Friday March 10, 2023 at 3pm CET (9am EST, 7:30pm IST) – please contact Katia (katia.gonzalez.gutierrez@bics.com) and Anurag (anurag.aggarwal@globeteleservices.com) to register your interest.

i3forum members will bring together their experts and develop reference documentation, operational best practices, and an actionable code of conduct. This will allow the entire international communications ecosystem to strengthen their arsenal against fraud and establish common practices across the industry.

This initiative, led by Katia Gonzalez (BICS), and supported by Anurag Aggarwal (GTS), leverages the specific fraud prevention expertise of the i3forum membership, complementing the work of other industry bodies.

The Workgroup’s initial objectives (in collaboration with other industry bodies) are as follows:

– Cross / mutual education (supporting voice and messaging convergence)
– Use cases / fraud types – listing, understanding, detecting, and preventing
– Messaging fraud dispute handling – building on the widely adopted procedures for voice that were created by the i3forum members
– Develop a specific code of conduct – ensuring maximum adoption and replicating our success with voice.

Heads up! – Board elections are coming.

To help shape and deliver on our vision, we are looking for passionate people who understand the value of collaboration, to join the i3forum board of directors.

The elections process is open to all full members.  These elections, which will be initiated in the coming weeks, will reconfirm the existing leadership and hopefully welcome new board members.

Open seats are available, do not hesitate to let us know if you are interested in joining.

Meet the team – because it’s all about the people.

Christian Michaud, Executive Director

I’m a true Montrealer born and raised.  After traveling in more than 50 countries during my career and meeting so many great people around the planet I now enjoy spending more time home and less time traveling.  After more than 30 years in the Telecommunications industry, I took a semi-retirement in April 2021 and I spend time supporting the i3forum great initiatives and doing a number of other projects including the renovation of a cottage on a lake we bought a few years back.

This cottage is now my refuge and best place to spend time on earth.  In the middle of the woods and right in front of the lake, I spend my time walking in the woods, canoeing or kayaking the lake and rivers around.  Winters is great for snowshoe hiking and skating on the lake.  Cooking a meal on the BBQ and sharing drinks with family and friends is also great in such an environment.

Looking forward to meet many new people and supporting the success of the forum and the ecosystem it’s support.

Gregory Koch, PMO Director

I enjoy many facets of fitness, running and weightlifting are probably my favorites.  When I’m not at our Wilmington, DE residence I can usually be found at our beach house, down the jersey shore (my happy place!).  Most proudly, I’m a husband and hands-on father of two.

Five years ago this autumn, after a rewarding twenty-year career in Telecommunications, I started my consulting practice, albeit somewhat unexpectedly.

After spending several months clearing dense brush and woods from my backyard, I was asked by a former colleague to review his marketing plan in support of a new product launch.  Marketing plans and product launches were furthest from mind after beginning a semi-retirement not long ago.  Helping my former colleague provided the initial spark that ultimately led to my next venture.

Helping people and organizations achieve their goals is what motivates me.  Working with the i3forum has allowed me to do just that.  I directly support the board of directors along with the Executive Director as well as the various workgroups.

Don’t forget – encourage your Numbering Plan team to join the i3forum Numbering Plan Community.

What’s on your mind?

We’re happy to help with any questions or comments you might have.
Topics we would like to (re)activate – let us know if you’d be interested.

i3forum, sponsor of the 2023 State of the Network Report

The 2023 State of the Network Report is finally here and it’s TeleGeography sixth annual check-in on all things telecom.

Take a snapshot of the global internet, peruse the latest in data centers, check in on the cloud, and finish with an update from the voice market.

You can download this year’s report over here.

Happy New Year from the i3forum!

Let’s start with a warm welcome to the most recent members Twilio and XConnect !

This year is off to an exciting start with multiple new initiatives and an important discussion on evolving our vision and our role in the Industry. A lot has also been accomplished by the various existing working groups: Fight Against Voice Fraud, Technology, Numbering Plan, and Insights (our Voice market sizing service).

More than ever, this is a call for you to participate: please join the various working groups and feel free to reach out to the board to discuss membership and suggest new initiatives or projects you may have in mind – remember, this is all “By the Carriers, for the Carriers”!

Working on new vision – join the discussion!

With the evolution of the wholesale market, such as the growing demands of domestic regulators (NRAs), and the integration of messaging and voice communications services, the i3forum is revisiting its vision and the role it wants to play for the industry.

The i3forum is exploring ways to play a more active role in helping the international wholesale voice and messaging industry deal with fraud and with the sometimes conflicting demands of the domestic regulators. Engaging with regulators, carriers, vendors and aggregators, we are developing a new vision that we will be sharing with you very soon.

NEW INITIATIVES – A2P Messaging Services

The i3forum is placing new emphasis on A2P messaging services with two new projects.

Fighting Messaging Fraud: growth in this business has attracted fraudsters resulting in the artificial inflation of traffic and an increase in spoofed origination identifiers. Fraud mechanisms are using both voice and messaging networks and therefore the answer to these issues must also be convergent between voice and messaging.

Messaging Market Intelligence: leveraging our experience with Insights (collaborative market sizing – see below), the i3forum is exploring an international A2P messaging services version of the solution.

The i3forum is well positioned to bring together voice and messaging experts to collaborate on common approaches, recommendations, and solutions.

Fraud Survey Report is out

Why read this report?

The i3forum and the Risk and Assurance Group (RAG) got together to survey fraud prevention experts.

• Large representation and response rate

• Prevalent fraud trends & types analysis

• Fraud Management Systems (FMS): who uses what and how

• Fighting fraud: lessons learnt, what works, what remains to be done

• Collaboration: why industry collaboration is key

Read the report >

COMING SOON – i3forum Numbering Plan Community Platform!

Once available participants will be able to share global numbering plan updates, data, and information to enhance your company’s internal numbering plan databases, processes, and procedures. The numbering plan community platform will enable online collaboration with industry peers.

Stay tuned!

NEW SERVICE – Introducing Insights Light

i3forum Insights is a comprehensive market database for international voice services that has been available since January 2020. It is based on actual data provided by participating carriers, anonymized and aggregated.

Insights Light provides an easy integration into the Insights platform designed for carriers with fewer resources. Subscribe to Insights Light and start benefiting from the industry’s premier market data solution.

For more information on Insights, including Insights Light please contact Telegeography (Jon Hull) or the i3forum (Christian Michaud).

What’s on your mind?

We’re happy to help with any questions or comments you might have.

Topics we would like to (re)activate – let us know if you’d be interested

Get in touch!

Why read this report ?

• Large representation and response rate: dozens of professionals active in both the wholesale and retail voice
• Fraud trends & prevalent fraud types analysis
• Fraud monitoring and protection: 80% of the respondents have implemented fraud management systems (FMS)
• Fighting fraud: lessons learnt. What works, what remains to be done
• i3forum recommendations continue to have a positive impact in fighting fraud in the wholesale space
• Collaboration across the Industry is key
  

Click here to read the report  >