IBM may work with telcos to offer blockchain solutions

International Business Machines, is now looking to work with the Indian telecom companies to offer the blockchain solutions that can be used in the Mobile Number Portability and Do Not Call registries.

“We have completed proof of concepts and pilots with all the major telecom providers and with Trai in this space,” said Sriram Raghavan, vice president of IBM Research. “We anticipate that going into the New Year, we’ll start to see blockchain solutions getting rolled out.” He did not name the telecom companies.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and telecom providers have been working with some of the big tech firms such as the IBM to know that how Blockchain could address the issues of coordination among the multiple parties with respect to the Do Not Call registries and number portability. Everything from customer consent for the DNC service to whether the consent is respect is recorded on the Blockchain. For help managing customer preferences and ensuring Do Not Call compliance check out this website.

“This gives Trai, as a regulator, more visibility and spot malfeasance quickly,” he said. “Mobile number portability, too, is a multi-party process involving a minimum of two telecom providers where blockchain can play a role.”

TRAI had also completed a review of the proofs of concepts on the Blockchain or the distributed ledger technology in the month of February. After the evaluating what was possible with the DLT, the regulatory also comes out with setoff regulations in the month of May.

“We had a meeting (on Monday) and the telecom service providers are now in the process of aligning their vendors,” a Trai official said. The companies have promised to roll out DLT-based systems in the next couple of months, the person said. The Do Not Call registry would be the first to move towards DLT. Blockchain, first emerged as the system underpinning the popular cryptocurrency bitcoin, is a digitally distributed collection of records where every person or entity on the network has a copy of the ledger. All participants have to agree to make any change.