First formed at ITW last year, the agreement has seen its founding carriers work together to define and implement a set of industry principles for improved technical reach and interoperability across their networks for signalling, SMS and IPX.
The agreement also aims to ensure international voice minutes are routed on the shortest possible path and with the highest level of quality. A strong focus has also been placed on combating fraud in the wholesale market through the sharing of tools and best practices.
“I am delighted to have joined the Chicago agreement. It is a great initiative that will allow Telefonica to offer richer end-to-end secured services to our customers across the world by collaborating with the other global carriers supporting the initiative, and are looking forward to additional carriers joining us,” commented Juan Revilla, CEO, wholesale business unit, Telefonica.
The five carriers combined provide services to more than 1 billion retail customers across 84 countries.
Since the launch of the initiative, the partners are said to have increased retail flows over direct routes by 20%, reaching on average of over 60% of traffic routed directly within the footprints of the member carriers.
Ass traffic continues to grow, the partners are connecting their SMS platforms to ensure improved and secured delivery of messages to customers. The partners are also working together to improve technical reach and interoperability in IPX.
The Chicago Agreement is open to other global carriers around the world sharing the same objectives.
