The purpose of this CXTech Week 46 2021 newsletter is to highlight, with commentary, some of the news stories in CXTech this week. What is CXTech?  The C stands for Connectivity, Communications, Collaboration, Conversation, Customer; X for Experience because that’s what matters; and Tech because the focus is enablers.

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Covered this week:

• UK Operators are not blocking SMishing
• TADSummit EMEA Americas 2021 Week 2
• TADHack-mini Orlando at Avaya ENGAGE adds another sponsor: ToolWire
• NEC Backs Rescheduled Intermedia IPO
• People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff

UK Operators are not blocking SMishing. 183 SMS messages with 183 unique live phishing URLs pass through.

Not a single UK Operator stopped a single phishing message during formal testing – 183 SMS messages with 183 unique live phishing URLs. Each one was sent at least 3 times to each network over the course of a week.

No operator could detect any signs of danger, even after seeing each dangerous URL numerous times, because it’s impossible to detect the intent of an unknown URL. It’s not their fault as the cybersecurity industry hasn’t built a single solution for operators – they’re busy selling security apps to businesses and consumers – and they can’t stop phishing URLs either.

Zero Trust Authentication for URL & Web Access control is the only way to combat smishing. Trust no URL, always verify.

TADSummit EMEA Americas 2021 Week 2

We kicked off the week reviewing the Open Source Telecom Survey 2021 part 1 on Monday reviewed 2019 and 2020 results (summary), and part 2 reviewed the 2021 General Survey Results. Part 3 reviewed the project results and overall recommendations. I chopped the videos up into bite sized chunks to make it easier to get to the info you want.

On Wednesday we introduced SentryPeer, a distributed list of bad IP addresses and phone numbers collected via a SIP Honeypot, from Gavin Henry.

And we’ll wrap up the week with an excellent presentation from Shai Berger of Fonolo, which I think provides some interesting ideas for those participating in TADHack-mini Orlando at Avaya ENGAGE on 11-12 Dec.

Thank you to our sponsors for making this possible:  AWA Network, Automat Berlin, STROLID, Radisys, GoContact, Broadvoice and Telnyx.

TADHack-mini Orlando at Avaya ENGAGE adds another sponsor: ToolWire

Last week we added two more sponsors: Subspace and Telnyx. And this week we added ToolWire,

We have more than $15,000 in prizes and other goodies, great food, access to the Avaya ENGAGE Welcome Party at Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort Beach & Cabana Pool on Sunday (free food, drink and fun). Plus winners can present their hack to the 16,000 strong Avaya ENGAGE community on Monday 13th.

The learning you gain from TADHack can help you grow your business. Remembering Holdr from TADHack-mini Orlando 2018 by Hunter Henry, Travis Konarik, and Matthew Tanner using Avaya. Not only did the team win a cash prize, the hack helped some of the team win a sweet project later in the year!

NEC Backs Rescheduled Intermedia IPO

NEC plans to invest $40 million in Intermedia amid a rescheduled Intermedia IPO (initial public offering). The anticipated investment is part of NEC’s expanded global partnership with Intermedia, which focuses on Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS). Intermedia’s numbers are:

• Revenue of $251.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020, and $133.8 million in the six months ended June 30, 2021.
• Growing – UCaaS Solutions grew annual recurring revenue (ARR) 31.5% over the 12-month period ended June 30, 2021, and contributed 35.4% and 39.4% of our total ARR as of December 31, 2020 and June 30, 2021, respectively.
• Shrinking – ARR from the BCA product group, which includes cloud-based email solutions, email protection, archiving and encryption services, file backup and collaboration solutions, productivity services and other services including SIP trunking, declined 5.7% over the 12-month period ended June 30, 2021, and contributed 65% and 61% of our total ARR as of December 31, 2020 and June 30, 2021, respectively.
• Net loss for the ended December 31, 2020, was $21.7 million. Also, net loss for the six months ended June 30, 2021, was $13.7 million.

People, Gossip, and Frivolous Stuff

Sajeel Hussain is now Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at CareAR, A Xerox Company.

Otherwise it’s been a quiet week for news and people moves. With Thanksgiving coming up next week, will the lull continue?

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