Somos Joins MessageComm

Somos, the provider of trusted, neutral Toll-Free numbering and registry administration services for the telecommunications industry, has announced it has joined MessageComm, the only trade association solely focused on messaging.

“Somos is thrilled to join other thought-leaders in guiding the future of messaging,” said Gina Perini, Somos president and CEO. “As a company driven by fairness and neutrality, we applaud MessageComm’s mission to make messaging the most trusted and reliable form of communication and look forward to being at the forefront of enriching our industry.”

Somos’ Texting & Smart Services (TSS) Registry is the first formal industry-wide system to support the growing demand for the text enablement of Toll-Free Numbers. “The TSS Registry expands the scope of Toll-Free voice services to include text communication. And that helps our Toll-Free subscribers and their customers to make better connections all around,” Perini said.

“The meteoric growth in messaging has created significant security and privacy issues for both consumers and businesses,” said Noah Rafalko, CEO of Midori Interactive, Inc. Rafalko, VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, and diversity expert Adis Maria Vila, J.D., MBA share the co-directorship of MessageComm, which has applied for non-profit status.

“Thanks to the support of Somos, NetNumber and many other global telecom leaders, MessageComm is growing into a major force in the messaging industry,” Rafalko said. “Our mission is to make messaging the most trusted and reliable form of communication by creating industry best practices and standards, privacy rules and educational content.“

MessageComm represents a wide variety of industry participants, from carriers to large enterprises, registries to RESP ORGs. It is the only organization that is successfully corralling the combined enthusiasm and expertise of industry participants that have traditionally been in competitive rather than cooperative working relationships.

The new association’s goal is to resolve critical issues around messaging and help the industry evolve and change for the better. Somos and NetNumber are among the many organizations that have joined MessageComm in its quest to define new and better security and communications standards for both existing and future messaging channels.
 
“MessageComm is filling an important need in the broader messaging ecosystem,” said Joel Bernstein, Somos VP of Regulatory and Public Policy. “Toll-Free provides an important platform for messaging and we applaud MessageComm’s commitment to resolving important issues that can hamper growth.”

​“There’s clearly consensus that we must eliminate the noise and frustration from spammers, robocallers and other fraudulent communications that impede consensual communications,” Jeff Pulver said. “We want to bring everyone in the industry together to negotiate best practices, solve security issues and make messaging a golden service. We’re at the cusp of innovation. It’s going to change and it may as well be led by us.”